It is amazing how many coaches, solopreneurs, massage therapists, lawyers, etc. are competent at what they do–yet suffer financially. They are doing good, but they are not doing well–that is, they are struggling financially, mentally, and emotionally.

There are reasons for this. I have identified the top 6 reasons–and their solutions-that I have found in my experience in my own business as well as observing those who still have a “practice”.

The first 3 are presented to you below. The next three will be in Part 2 in a couple of weeks.

A Lack of Integral Thinking: “Money and Spirituality are in Conflict”

For some, “capitalism” is a bad word. Which makes sense. “Capitalism” was a phrase coined by the biggest enemy of the free market and free enterprise to ever live–Karl Marx. Yet, we keep that inaccurate and pejorative moniker. We were taught for thousands of years that to profit was bad–and then this meme was punctuated by the evils of capitalism laid out by a failed mathematician who had no foresight into the services industry–never mind respect for private property and Natural Law and was therefore essentially a thief on a grand scale. Even though with the rise of capitalism in the mid-1800s, our standard of living has more than trebled, never mind that our life expectancy has doubled in a short time as a result…it…is…bad.

While there was a a time when one could only profit by exploitation and manipulation or by inheritance or plunder, this has not been accurate for nearly 300 years.

[Before commenting on this, please read my series of articles on Spiritual Capitalism, found here: Read First || Read Second || Read Third.]

Maybe we should consider throwing off the chains of thinking birthed centuries before the Enlightenment and even before the founding of this Country and came to a head–and have been proven to be inaccurate, ineffective, and fundamentally broken in the last Century.

The truth is, it is not only possible to come from service and contribution in a “for profit” environment–that is to live a purpose-filled life–but also to profit well from it and to live prosperously. It takes some personal work–being mindful of your thinking, cleaning out your unconscious imprints of guilt and shame, and to constantly be of service while having sufficient esteem for your self to recognize the value you are bringing to another’s life and to have them provide that value monetarily in exchange. It takes a lack of attachment to “closing that deal” and being more focused on service and “opening relationships”–and much more.

Actually, I have found what can be provided to our clients lives is priceless to them. Fees are insignificant when weighed against what the work we do in their lives will make possible. It is not a commodity. It is a gateway to greater freedom and happiness. We can live a spiritually oriented life–and integrate free-market, service-based principles into that.

By doing so, we integrate our spiritual and our financial life. This frees us from guilt, shame, and allows us to flourish spiritually while prospering financially.

Lack of Skill: Sales and Marketing

We have all had negative experience with sales people. Not sales professionals, but sales people–that is, people who want to “close a deal” rather than open a relationship. And most sales trainers teach techniques with little regard for a philosophical base or grounding. I do not support that.

I used to think sales was a dirty word. That was until I realized that until I could influence people to take action in their lives–leverage them beyond their limitations–I could never really do much good in the world. You can only be a positive agent for change if you can inspire others to move beyond their current thinking–the thinking that has them in their current life situation and has stopped them from being fully free and thriving.

Therefore–if you truly want to do good in the world, it becomes your duty–yes, your duty–to assist others in overcoming their limitations. That means learning to sell and market your services in a compelling way that comes from service and contribution while combining that with powerful tool of influence.

You must gain those skills if you want to make a difference and be prosperous.

While it may be hard to swallow at first [took me years to accept] you must be a sales person first–that is you must be able to enroll others in a vision–to live your purpose and prosper.

Error in Structure: Service, Sustainability, and Packages

One you are coming from service and contribution, you begin to consider what would best serve the client. Most practitioners have session-by-session practices or monthly packages, but they do not have comprehensive packages that have stages and phases in them. How many people out there have dabbled here and dabbled there and never really bucked down and did the deep work to reveal greater depths within themselves? I have found most clients approach their personal development this way. “Well, I have tried this and I have tried that…”, [but I never really got what I needed that was deeper].

The best thing you can do as a coach or a practitioner is to find a way to create a compelling 3-stage or 3-phase offering that allows the client to reveal greater and greater depths or to attain greater and greater heights. For a massage therapist, this may mean something like:

• Healing
• Activating
• Opening

For a Coach it may mean something like:

• Clarity
• Tool Gathering/Education
• Purpose/Action

I am just pulling these out of my pocket and tossing them out there. The point is that if you truly want to be of service to your clients, you will develop a phased program so that they finally make a deep commitment to themselves–and they finally achieve that elusive transformation–mentally, emotionally, and perhaps spiritually, they have been looking for for years.

In the process, you create a sustainable practice with monthly payments coming in–and you get to then relax and be certain you are always acting with integrity and acting ethically. People only get slimy when they are desperate. You owe it to your clients to create a deep compelling offer that is only offered with integrity–and you owe it to your self to be prosperous as a purpose driven helper. Everyone wins.

And wouldn’t you like to be in a position to say to to a prospect you really do not want to work with? Of course you would. Wouldn’t you like to always operate with full integrity and ethics intact coming from service and contribution? Of course you would. Wouldn’t you like to provide comprehensive solutions to your clients so you can make a deep and lasting positive impact on their lives?

Of course you would.

[the next 3 top problems/errors and solutions will be handled in part 2]

[Listener Question]

It is unbelievable what I missed the first time through.

Yes. Most people do not believe me [or perhaps literally do not hear me] when I say to listen at least three times through all the way first because of what is missed by the human physiology/sense tools the first time–and even the second. Additionally, you are different, deeper, richer, or just plain have a new focus and so hear things differently–or perhaps for the first time, not having the ability to receive it/fit it into your linguistic or conceptual structures the last time you heard it–even after several listenings. I still re-listen to audio products I bought 10 years ago and hear them in ways that blow my mind now.

I do have one questions…how do I pace myself through the program. First time through was as you were releasing new episodes… now i have 16. I’m fighting back the urge to do them all at once…..

Thank you for this very important question. That depends on your own process and your internal processing. If you are a more kinesthetic person [talking slower, looking down a lot, feeling, touchy feely, perhaps], then you will get it more deeply, but it will take you longer to fully understand the scope. If you have good auditory digital recall, you may remember verbatim the first time–the guy who never studied in college, but always attended the lectures, then aces the final is one example of someone with good auditory digital processing. A visual person will often think they have it, becuase the understand it cognitively the first time–and very rapidly, but they do not have it deeply in their neurology and will lose or miss stuff thinking they already “know” it because they understood it rapidly. These people have the toughest time accepting that they understand it or cognize it, but have not necessarily “learned” it.

When I say “learn” I do not mean remember or understand cognitively, I mean that they actually behave from the mindset, or that it is their patterned response–their new habit pattern or new emotional reaction or their “natural” way or predictable way of responding.

On that note, a while back I wrote a piece to support this titled Insight and Integration. You can read it HERE.

So…how do you pace yourself? I would make sure you listen to episodes 0 through 16 all the way through at least three times so that you can the model in your mind to such a degree that you can trouble shoot your own performance from an objective perspective. That requires you to mentally and conceptually hold the entire model in your mind. Do that all the way through. THEN go back slowly and go through it to do the exercises and play with the ideas and component parts individually.

And remember–there is no inherent number of times to listen to it when you are “done”. You are never done–there is just the asymptotic nature of Personal and Professional Evolution. The question is two what degree and in which contexts have I integrated it?

Hope this helps!

Cross Posted @ IDEA.

Be sure to read Part 1 here first.

Practical Steps to Emotional Freedom

Your practice, if you want to develop choice, facility, and ultimately, personal freedom and mastery over your own subjective experience, is the following:

Make a decision right now to take 100% responsibility for your subjective experience. Every bit of it. Your interpretations, your feelings, your emotions, your beliefs—accept that 100% of your subjective experience is generated by…you.

This will give you power and access to choice and freedom. It is also a spiritual and emotional truth with over 2600 years of testing, verification, and validation. There are certainly things you will have to give up, self-righteousness and blame being to two big ones, but you have to decide if you want to be right, or be happy. If you want to be happy and free from the emotional matrix of self-generated misery…make the decision now.

Having made that decision, then:

1. Notice when you are agitated
2. Notice how you are characterizing the events [is it descriptive, scientific, or is it a judgment or characterization?]
3. Ask yourself what other possible interpretations there are [generate at least three alternative interpretations, making at least one fun] this will build in interpretive flexibility and assist you in taking on multiple perspectives–a critical faculty to build for your personal evolution
4. Ask yourself what you know—scientifically, descriptively—and what you are making up or imagining—and separate the two
5. Verify your interpretations directly with the party involved

In the unlikely event that your disempowering and/or negative interpretations are accurate, your work continues by being vigilant against the old habit patterns of the mind to then extrapolate out a generalized disempowering and/or possibly a “global” belief. I recommend conducting a sentence stem exercise to uncover some of your own beliefs—particularly the global or personally limiting beliefs. What are sentence stems and what are the guidelines for such an exercise?

I am glad you asked. Some examples of sentence stems are as follows:

• I am _________.
• People are _________.
• The world is _________.
• I will never _________.
• They always _________.
• Men [are] _________.
• Women [are] _________.

The guidelines for the exercise are to

1. Finish the sentence in writing as many times as possible within 90 or 120 second—that is, 1.5 or 2 minutes.
2. No less than 10 completions, no more than 20 is a useful range
3. All answers are acceptable; no filtering, no reframing, no changing of any answers
4. Let it flow—that is try to complete the exercise as much as possible without thinking about the answers.
5. If they start to get “strange” or unexpected, you are on the right track.
6. If they are all happy and shiny, redo the exercise focusing on the shadow side

What this exercise does is allows us to uncover beliefs from parts of ourselves we do not always allow to come through. Beliefs that are there are the time, and are running our lives; beliefs that may be limiting us, may be causing dis-ease and tension in our body, robbing us of possibility, connection, opportunity and prosperity, and ultimately health and well being. These beliefs, once we have scoured the world for enough “evidence” to support them become the glasses through which we view the world creating a clouded and disempowered experience-not to mention inherently inaccurate, at least in part. Begin to look for counter-examples. Notice your attachment to beliefs and how that only serves you short term, and stalls your personal evolution.

Once again, as always, awareness is the gateway. Awareness of your sensations, is the first entry point. Are you agitated? Do you feel a sinking feeling in your stomach? Is there tension in your chest? Etc. From there, what are the thoughts and interpretations leading to those sensations? Are the labels you are attaching to those sensations even accurate? To what degree? How accurate are your interpretations of the events? Once verified, then ask, what did I make it mean? And then ask yourself, “what else could it mean?”

The answers to that last question must be positive or empowering about yourself or about the world or about people. You get extra evolutionary bonus points if you do this even when you don’t have to—that is, when your anger is “justified” or your frustration is “understandable”.

Be vigilant against this pitfall. While it may feel good in the moment–and there is a short-term pseudo-self-esteem boost [that is, pre-rational, stage 1 ego reenforcement], it does not serve your evolution in the long-term to indulge in the place of justification for your “negative” emotional states.

Develop your awareness. Use the power of your mind to free yourself and to prosper. Prosper financially, emotionally, relationally, and spiritually.

“We do not respond to reality. We respond to our internal representation of reality.”—NLP Presupposition

“Mind precedes everything. All that you are is a result of what you have thought.”—Buddhist Principle

People of get wisdom and insight in both the East and West agree. Our emotional experience has little or nothing to do with external reality. Oh sure—there are plenty of people, events, situations, and injustices that are easy targets for blame. Bad things happen. And while, often people’s lives are the sum total of their choices, often bad things happen to good people through no action or fault of their own. And less dramatically, unpleasant and undeserved things may happen. Only a fool would dispute that.

Events occur. That we cannot change. What we do have tremendous choice over is our experience of those events.

And yet, take 5 people and have something negative happen to them and they will all react, respond, and characterize it differently—if even slightly. They will have five different emotional experiences.

What is the difference that makes the difference?

One of my favorite examples is when someone does not call when they said they would or we expect them to. Or perhaps they are late or a no-show to some meeting or appointment. When we finally hear from them, how often are they blamed for our negative emotional experience? We say things like, “you made me worry”, or “I was about to call the hospital,” or something of that nature. Perhaps we are relieved when we hear form them. Perhaps we are angry. Perhaps we are both in succession.

I love that—“you made me worry”.  As if the person forced us to fantasize negative things. The responsible thing to say when we were upset by a lack of information is something like, “I was worried because I lacked facility with my interpretations.”

Whether we are conscious of them or not, all of our emotions are a result of our internal maps of reality or our internal representations.

How emotionally free are you? To answer that answer this question: how well do you accept or respond to unexpected events—and events that violate your expectations?

Here is a simple equation to ponder:

X + Y = E

Where X is the event, Y is your interpretation of the event, and E is the resulting emotion. We have little choice over events. We can interpret them any number of ways. And we usually do—however we usually do it in a negative and disempowering way. That would be bad enough, but we do not stop there, do we? No. We then generalize it out and create a belief about ourselves, people, the world, etc. spreading the madness allowing it to be come one of the filters through which we view the world. To make matters even worse, we do not sort events looking for how they are different than our belief; we look for evidence to buttress it so we feel validated and our small ego gets some satisfaction. Our belief then becomes a conviction. Gather enough “evidence” and it becomes simply the way the world is, or people are. That is, it becomes the truth.

Sadly, [for them] most people would rather be right than be accurate. That is, they come to conclusions and then sort for evidence that proves that they are “right” often ignoring evidence to the contrary—actually not even noticing it. Far better to look for how your belief may be inaccurate. Better still, to gather evidence and come to a conclusion after all the information is in. Even better still is to avoid creating global beliefs about anything and any one.

Anger and Stress are Immuno-Supressive

The person who is hurt the most by our lack of facility is our self. There is a greater and greater volume of research to validate the long-held understanding that negative emotions are a drain on your physical resources negatively impacting health and well being; that positive emotions are uplifting and create greater physical health and well being.

I recommend The Molecules of Emotion as a good start.

Practical Steps to Emotional Freedom…

Read the rest in Part 2 next week…

Cross posted at I.D.E.A. 

Michael asks:

My questions are what if the receptionist says that the decision maker doesn’t take incoming calls, you can only reach him by email or leaving a message with me? Also, if the decision maker says there not interested in a sales call, what do you do?

Good questions Michael. There is always a way. Maybe you need to dial another extension and play Columbo and say you were trying to reach so-and-so [decision maker]. You could also ask: what do I need to do to be interesting enough for him/her to take the call?

If the decision maker says they are not interested in a sales call then you need to tailor your opening line. What would they be interested in? For instance: “If I could show you how to save 20% on lead generation, would that be interesting to you? Great. Do you have 15 minutes to discuss that?”

It is implied you are making a sales call–and you have generated interest and received permission.

Thanks Michael.

Keep those listener questions coming!

Cross posted @ I.D.E.A. 

–

If you want more powerful distinctions to integrate into your life to immediately increase your professional results and access greater emotional freedom, explore that here:

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Be sure to read Part 1 of this article here.

Taking Responsibility

The more you take responsibility—for your emotions, your actions, your life the more you build self-esteem. It is not the person who upset you, it is that you became triggered—or that you lost facility. It is not that the cost of living is too high; it is that you are not generating enough income. It is not that someone treats you poorly; it is that you are ineffective at drawing appropriate boundaries. The locus of responsibility—and therefore power—is within you. Nothing is external. To blame someone is to give them tremendous power over you. When you forgo blame in favor of responsibility, you give up comfort, but you reap tremendous rewards—gaining power and building self-esteem.

Sadly, I have even experienced people whose ego structure [development of self-esteem] is so insufficient that they will severely distort facts to make themselves look better—all unconsciously. That is, they are not even aware they are doing it. Their ego is so small and fragile it can not include possibilities that do not put them in the most positive light. They also cannot hear feedback. They take things personally that take great leaps of irrationality to do so. They will also have trouble telling the truth of their experience—they are too fearful. And they have a strong — and at times desperate — need for approval and acknowledgment from others.

They are in egoic hell.

Fortunately, the solution is simple. Not easy, but simple. And the more you do it the easier it gets and it is the only sure fire way to build your rational self-esteem; taking responsibility for your part in all things inter-personal. Seeing and examining your part—and ignoring the part the other person had to play in it. Blame serves no one. Responsibility gives you tremendous power. Read the rest of this entry »

One critical and often overlooked element to a successful professional and personal life is that of a daily spiritual practice. Whether you are an Evolutionary Sales Professional, an entrepreneur, solo-preneur, or the CEO of a global corporation, you will be more effective once you accept this and integrate it into your daily life.

Some of you may be thinking, “I listened to Jason’s podcasts for 14 weeks, and suddenly he goes woo-woo on me!”

I assure you, nothing could be farther from the truth. What I am about to lay out for you is just as critical a skill as rapport skills, or eliciting values, or finessing the “gatekeeper” on the phone, and is just as tangible a skill—the skill of navigating your own interiors. By “spiritual practice”, I mean a practice that builds the muscle of dis-identification.

Let’s examine this together.

What is “Spiritual”?

Given the current state of the world, I had best define “spiritual” for our purposes here. Typically when someone says spiritual, they mean one of two things:

1. An experience involving some epiphany or outside god or goddess.
2. The revealing of the highest or deepest within each of us

I do not mean the first. Nor do I mean something religious. I do not mean prayer, the lighting of incense, or the saying of some rite or ritual. I am not here to condemn those things—they are just not what I mean. What I mean is dis-identifying from that which you think is you and retreating into that which you truly are—pure awareness. Consciousness. The Witness.

Let’s further examine this together.

“Know thyself.”—The Oracle of Delphi

In the professional domain: have you ever felt “rejected” by a prospect? Ever taken something personally in the business context? Have you ever felt dejected, depressed, or defeated as a result of some interaction or a failure to open the relationship as you had intended? Have you ever obsessed over that client you knew was not quite a fit for you or your organization? Have you ever lied about the results you were producing to make yourself look better? Have you ever been intentionally vague for the same purpose?

Have you ever lost a job and were thrust into a period of confusion and depression?

In the personal domain: have you ever stayed in a relationship after you were clear it did not serve you? out of fear of the social implications? Or out of fear of being alone? Or out of a fear of being uncertain who you would be without him/her in your life? Have you ever been afraid to tell the truth about your self or some aspect of your life, not for the wise practical reasons, but out of a fear of rejection? Have you ever considered suicide over the loss of a large sum of money, a relationship, or a major loss of social reputation? Or stayed in a marriage that was abusive for your familial “obligations”?

Have you ever been upset because someone forgot your name? Or mispronounced it? Or could not remember meeting you?

Maybe you answered yes to some of these, one of these, all of them, or some variation on the theme not listed here for the sake of expediency. These are all a function of two things [and usually both]:

1. Low self-esteem; an underdeveloped ego
2. Identification with that which is not you

Self-esteem I have written about before, and will continue to do so. Just a few quick thoughts here, now:

Self-esteem is so necessary and so misunderstood. So misrepresented in popular psychology today. In fact, I often use the phrasing “esteem for the self” with my clients to set what I mean apart from popularized “self-esteem”. One common misconception is that someone else can be “bad” for your self-esteem. It is not the person that is bad for your self-esteem; it is your volitional choice to stay with them that is “bad” for it. We could go on and on deconstructing the misconceptions, but that is for another time. There is only one sure way to build self-esteem…

Read the second half of this article next week Part 2 is now available HERE.

If you want more powerful distinctions to integrate into your life to immediately increase your professional results and access greater emotional freedom, explore that here:

And if you like it:

Comment
Digg it
Review it in iTunes

And create upward spirals for us all!

Cross-Posted at Evolutionary Awareness.

I have created a new category here on the blog. It is “Listener Questions”. You will be able to search through it in the future–or be featured there if you like. This is the first entry in this category.

A listener [Rebecca in the United Kingdom] asks:

I  am a photographer’s rep.  I sell photographers to ad agencies, design agencies and magazines.  I tend to work for photographer’s agencies, selling on behalf of the agency head.

Often in my work I find myself having to sell photographers that I don’t think are very good.  Worse, sometimes I know the photographers to be slightly unprofessional.  It doesn’t sit right.  I don’t have any problems making sales on behalf of brilliant businesslike photographers, but I just can’t seem to get work for others.  It’s a lot of pressure because it directly affects the photographer’s finances and quality of life if they have no work coming in.

So my question is - are there any tricks, of the mind or otherwise, that I can employ to sell a product that I think is poor quality? creativity I know is subjective, but commercially, some styles work and others don’t).

I hope you can use this question on your show as it is one I have struggled with for years.  love the show.  It makes me feel miles ahead of my competition as foolishly they don’t consider themselves to be true salespeople and so miss out on a lot of info that’s out there.

Thank you for your kind words–and thanks for asking the question. I think this is a critical question.  What I will say is that I personally committed a long time ago to NOT use mind tricks to motivate myself to sell products or promote individuals I do not believe in  and/or  do not support.

Someone asked me in a workshop I was leading: “what if I do not really believe in the product I am selling”? My answer? “Sell something else.” Heh.  Never try to trick your internal integrity alarm.

It will serve you well and your clients and colleagues will trust you more–and all are better served in the long run. Even the photographers who you do not support may improve faster than they would have–because now they have to to respond to the market feedback. So you serve them as well by being more honest and NOT pushing their sub-standard product.

And this, of course, is one of the differences that makes the difference in the 21st Century Marketplace–and one of the foundational mindsets of  Evolutionary Sales.

Be sure to read Part 1 here.

Awareness is the Gateway

As always it starts with awareness. Most people are not even aware they talk to themselves. In fact, there are likely some of you reading this, saying to yourselves inside your head right now, “what voice in my head? What’s this guy talking about? I don’t talk to myself!”

Others are aware of their thoughts and internal dialogue, but judge it, beating themselves up for negative self-talk. If ever there was an ironic twist to missing the point that would be it. Imagine that your unconscious mind is the five-year-old who is listening to every word you say as if it is Holy Scripture.

Would you talk to yourself the same way?

Once you develop awareness, then you must develop your facility with perceptual positions. It is only from the Observer position of that of Witness that you can give yourself clean feedback, and shift your thoughts to one of resource.

1. Practice awareness [meta-cognition]
2. Develop facility with perceptual position
3. Add positive and resourceful phrases and imaginings

Self-Hypnosis

To fully experience the power of intentional self-hypnosis, I recommend the following practice. Do it daily. Do it morning and night. Do it intentionally until it becomes the new habit pattern of your mind such that when you adjust your rear-view mirror, when you walk down the street, when you are about to go into a meeting, what is happening habitually and “naturally” is you are hearting positive thoughts and seeing positive images. And…you are aware of it all the while.

1. Pick 3 sentences you need to hear, believe, or accept.
2. Look in the mirror. As you do, pick one eye to stare into.
3. Say each sentence 5 times using second person language as if you are talking to the you “over there”
4. Notice how it feels [any resistance, incongruence or conflict, relief, joy, etc.

Some examples are:

• You will achieve all you desire
• You are on track
• You will enjoy a long life and vibrant health
• You can do anything
• You are loved [or safe, etc.]
• You’re awareness is becoming more and more acute

Pick your own. Which sentences you pick again depend on your particular outcomes, your needs, and your personal hurdles.

Optimizing Your Results

Use only positive language. Notice I did not say, “do not use negation” or “do not use negative language”. That is because the unconscious mind does not understand negation.

If I say, “do not think of a pink elephant, with yellow polka dots, and a small palm tree growing out of its head”, what do you imagine? At best it is a two-step process, so always use positive language.

One common mistake is to say things like:

You will not fail
You will overcome this illness
I will not be rejected
Etc.

While these may seem like positive messages, the focus for your unconscious mind is on the problem; failure, illness, rejection. A simple way to train your mind to use positive language is to ask, “what do I want instead?”

Some people ask, “Why pick just one eye?” You cannot look in both eyes simultaneously with a direct gaze. If you switch back and forth, uncertain or unable to choose just one, that is also less direct. A direct gaze is more powerful and more hypnotic. The suggestions go in more easily and deeper. Try it all three ways, you should feel a tangible difference when choosing just one and gazing directly.

If you do this daily, it will become a habit. Your self-talk—your internal dialogue—will become more and more positive. Self-doubt will melt away more and more. And you will find yourself being hopeful, optimistic, and engaged in positive self-hypnosis as if it were second nature.

You will reap the benefits and experience the results.

When most people hear the word “hypnosis” they get a little unsettled. They usually get unsettled as a result of some fantasy about what hypnosis is or is not. Some associate it to stage hypnosis on the Vegas strip. Others are afraid of what someone might do to them when they are unconscious. Still others are afraid of clucking like a chicken when the phone rings. Others my simply roll their eyes thinking that hypnosis is more mumbo-jumbo for the woo-woo set who wear patchouli oil and live on the West Coast or in Boulder Colorado.

Hypnosis Defined

So what is “hypnosis”? For our purposes, hypnosis is simply the use of language and imagination to direct experience. If you have ever watched television and felt enraptured in a show, you were in a hypnotic trance. When it seems like time flew by, you were in a hypnotic trance. If someone has ever told you a story and you began to visualize aspects of it, you were in a hypnotic trance. If you have ever fantasized about someone or something positively or negatively, you were in a hypnotic trance. If someone has ever asked “how are you today?” and you took a moment to truly consider it, they had put you in a hypnotic trance.

And the list goes on.

The truth is, we are in a state of hypnotic trance more than we are out of it.

That is the good news. Once you notice it, and have enough facility to intervene in the process, it becomes a tremendously powerful opportunity to harness the power of your mind. Once you notice it, you can be more respectful of other people’s experience and avoid adding anything negative. The truth is, we are directing each other’s experience all the time. We are hypnotizing each other all the time. Are you adding beauty and joy? Or are we directing people to their internal struggles or pain out of ignorance and “empathy”?

One of my favorite jokes to play in a partially full elevator is to look at the floor, placing both my hands on the side of my head, slapping lightly while say, “Shut up. All of you shut up!” What fun. However, there is an unfortunate kernel of truth in this joke for most of us.

Recent studies have indicated that over 77% of our self-talk or internal dialogue is negative. This is a stunning number. That is also an average from largely untrained minds.

You Notice What You Think About

The Law of Attraction has been one of the mainstays of personal development since its inception. That is, that we are likely to get what we focus on. Like a search engine, we put something in it, hit return, and we get ranked results. Our mind goes looking for what we often unintentionally tasked it with. And yet, we are often telling ourselves and our minds things that are negative, will not help us realize our potential, and will not serve our ultimate happiness.

There is a resurgent interest in and focus on this Law as a result of the movie The Secret. There is no magic to this. When we set our intention or focus on something, our reticular formation goes into action.

Some common examples:

• You decide on a new car you like and want to purchase; suddenly you see that model everywhere
• You make a decision to start a new business venture, and you overhear a stranger at a restaurant who may be helpful
• You make a commitment to a change in your life change and within the next week you see and/or hear multiple marketing messages offering solutions to the very problem you have decided to overcome

The results of the Law of Attraction can be traced to both the power of tens of thousands of years of evolution as well as the inherent limitations of our biology.

People who do not understand the science of the mind and body behind this will say things like “I manifested that/them”, and similar formulations that say more about their stage of development that any particular objective reality, After all, we interpret the world through–and react from–our stage of development and its accompanying filters and value memes.

The truth is, the thing we suddenly see or the opportunity that arises was already there, we just notice it now. Not only is our unconscious mind sorting for what it has been tasked with, but as a function of our biology, our senses have to reduce and filter out the majority of the stimulus we are exposed to for processing. We do not have the ability to process it all. Particularly visually and auditorally in an urban environment. In addition, our mind “fills in” information, again, as a function of how we are wired.

So our mind notices what we have consciously or unconsciously set it to notice. I recommend the conscious option as much as possible. becoming more and more intentional about this tool rather than leaving it to chance.

How do we train this powerful tool? How do we harness the full power of our minds for our benefit, rather than allowing it to run roughshod over us? How do we leverage this aspect of our consciousness to create a life in which we thrive?

…read about that in part 2 in a few days.