To get where you want to go in life, you must adopt the view that whatever is going on in your world—good, bad, or nothing—is something caused by you. I assume control over everything that happens to me, even for those things that I appear to have no control over. Whether I am in control or not, I still elect to claim responsibility and control so that I can do something to improve my situation going forward.
When I assume and increase my responsibility for this situation, I will probably come up with a solution going forward. Assume control and increase responsibility by adopting the position that you make all things happen, even those things you have previously considered to not be under your control. Never take the position that things just happen to you; rather, they happen because of something you did or did not do. If you are willing to take credit when you win, you have to take credit when you don't! Increasing your responsibility level will inherently enhance your ability to find solutions and create more success for yourself. Assuming control will cause you to start to look at what you can do to make sure negative events don't take place so that you can improve the quality of your life and reduce the occurrence of seemingly random unfortunate events. Once you start to approach every situation as someone who is acting—not being acted upon—you will start to have more control over your life. Having (or failing to have) success, I believe, is a direct result of everything you are doing and thinking yourself. You are the source, the generator, the origin, and the reason for everything—both positive and negative. This is not meant to simplify the concept of success, of course, but until you decide you are responsible for everything, you likely will not take the action necessary to get you above the game. However, if you want to have it all, then of course you have to assume responsibility for everything. It was only until I truly started to believe that nothing happens to me; it happens because of me that I was able to start operating at 10X levels. Someone once said, “No matter where I go, there I am.” This little saying suggested to me that I am both the problem and the solution. Disciplined, consistent, and persistent actions are more of a determining factor in the creation of success than any other combination of things. Understanding how to calculate and then take the right amount of action is more important than your concept, idea, invention, or business plan. Most people fail only because they are operating at the wrong degree of action. To simplify action, we are going to break down your choices into four simple categories or degrees of action. Your four choices are: 1. Do nothing. 2. Retreat. 3. Take normal levels of action. 4. Take massive action. You have to approach each day as though your life and your future depend on your ability to take massive action. The 10X Rule: The Only Difference Between Success and Failure Personal problems drive the evolution of the individual. Without my insecurity around my friend Steve, I never would’ve achieved the confidence I feel today. Without a crippling illness, Phil never would’ve taken the inner journey that yielded the tools. These are illustrations of the third pillar of the new spirituality: the driving force of spiritual evolution is personal problems
Think of a particularly difficult problem you have in your life right now and then try this: First, think of the problem as a random hardship, occurring in an unthinking universe that doesn’t care about you or your evolution. How does that feel? Now, think of the same problem as a challenge posed by a universe that wants you to evolve and knows that you can. How does that feel? Most people feel more motivated when they envision themselves as part of an intelligent system whose goal is their advancement. This ongoing sense that problems are meaningful is a fundamental difference between a consumer and a creator. A consumer feels that life is only meaningful when his needs are being gratified. Problems, because they are un-gratifying, inevitably destroy the consumer’s sense of purpose. In contrast, a creator has a sense of meaning that can’t be destroyed—he insists on seeing problems as driving him toward something better, something higher in himself. Far from destroying his sense of meaning, problems actually reinforce it. They want to respond to their problems as creators. All they need are the right tools. A healthy spirit has the confidence that it can meet the future. Although it’s impossible to know exactly what the future will bring, it will definitely contain some type of pain. When an individual stops moving forward in life, he stagnates. The only way to rebuild the spirit is to be true to its nature. The spirit always moves toward wholeness—it wants to embrace everyone. We feed the spirit every time we accept those who are most different from us. Doing this is a matter of self-interest. It’s impossible for anyone to feel secure in a society at odds with itself. The Tools: 5 Tools to Help You Find Courage, Creativity, and Willpower--and Inspire You to Live Life in Forward Motion The 10X Rule is about pure domination mentality. You never do what others do. You must be willing to do what they won't do—and even take actions that you might deem “unreasonable.”
Any goal you set is going to be difficult to achieve, and you will inevitably be disappointed at some points along the way. So why not set these goals much higher than you deem worthy from the beginning? If they are going to require work, effort, energy, and persistence, then why not exert 10 times as much of each? What if you are underestimating your capabilities? Remember: A person who limits his or her potential success will limit what he or she will do to create it and keep it. As long as you are alive, you will either live to accomplish your own goals and dreams or be used as a resource to accomplish someone else's. When you have underestimated the time, energy, and effort necessary to do something, you will have “quit” in your mind, voice, posture, face, and presentation. You won't develop the persistence necessary to get your mission accomplished. However, when you correctly estimate the effort necessary, you will assume the appropriate posture. The marketplace will sense by your actions that you are a force to be reckoned with and are not going away—and it will begin to respond accordingly. Never reduce a target. Instead, increase actions. When you start rethinking your targets, making up excuses, and letting yourself off the hook, you are giving up on your dreams! The 10X Rule assumes the target is never the problem. Any target attacked with the right actions in the right amounts with persistence is attainable. I know you've probably heard this before, but success does not merely “happen.” It is the result of relentless, proper actions taken over time. Only those who operate with the appropriate view and corresponding actions will have success. Luck clearly has something to do with it, but anyone who is “getting lucky” will tell you that their “luck” is directly proportional to what they've done. The more actions you take, the better your chances are of getting “lucky.” The 10X Rule: The Only Difference Between Success and Failure Online, you can become the person you really want to be. Fill your website with your work and your ideas and the stuff you care about. Over the years, you will be tempted to abandon it for the newest, shiniest social network. Don’t give in. Don’t let it fall into neglect. Think about it in the long term. Stick with it, maintain it, and let it change with you over time.
When she was young and starting out, Patti Smith got this advice from William Burroughs: “Build a good name. Keep your name clean. Don’t make compromises. Don’t worry about making a bunch of money or being successful. Be concerned with doing good work . . . and if you can build a good name, eventually that name will be its own currency.” The beauty of owning your own turf is that you can do whatever you want with it. Your domain name is your domain. You don’t have to make compromises. Build a good domain name, keep it clean, and eventually it will be its own currency. Whether people show up or they don’t, you’re out there, doing your thing, ready whenever they are. Show Your Work!: 10 Ways to Share Your Creativity and Get Discovered “If you work on something a little bit every day, you end up with something that is massive.”3/16/2014
“If you work on something a little bit every day, you end up with something that is massive.” —Kenneth Goldsmith
“Stock and flow” is an economic concept that writer Robin Sloan has adapted into a metaphor for media: “Flow is the feed. It’s the posts and the tweets. It’s the stream of daily and sub-daily updates that remind people you exist. Stock is the durable stuff. It’s the content you produce that’s as interesting in two months (or two years) as it is today. It’s what people discover via search. It’s what spreads slowly but surely, building fans over time.” Sloan says the magic formula is to maintain your flow while working on your stock in the background. In my experience, your stock is best made by collecting, organizing, and expanding upon your flow. Social media sites function a lot like public notebooks—they’re places where we think out loud, let other people think back at us, then hopefully think some more. But the thing about keeping notebooks is that you have to revisit them in order to make the most out of them. You have to flip back through old ideas to see what you’ve been thinking. Once you make sharing part of your daily routine, you’ll notice themes and trends emerging in what you share. You’ll find patterns in your flow. When you detect these patterns, you can start gathering these bits and pieces and turn them into something bigger and more substantial. You can turn your flow into stock. For example, a lot of the ideas in this book started out as tweets, which then became blog posts, which then became book chapters. Small things, over time, can get big. Show Your Work!: 10 Ways to Share Your Creativity and Get Discovered Increasing Your Income There are many ways to increase your income. I cover the 3 that worked best.3/9/2014
Increasing Your Income There are many ways to increase your income. I cover the three that worked best for us.
1. Selling things. You probably have a lot of stuff you didn’t even realize you had. I admitted that I had more stuff than I thought and when I actually let go I decided to get rid of things. We sold everything we could, from furniture that wasn’t necessary, to old computer monitors, to our kayak. When you can start to let go of the excess stuff you own, you can start to feel better. You feel more organized, and you feel like you are in control of things. As you downsize, it’s important to show appreciation for what you do have. There are so many people with much less, even if you are living paycheck to paycheck. Taking old things and donating them to Goodwill or friends in need may not help your budget, but it will help your mind. Giving during a time of scarcity is a great experience. 2. Increase your wage at your current job. I know the economy isn’t great, but if you are providing a lot of value to your employer, it doesn’t hurt to ask for a raise. I remember I was only three months into working at my company, and even though I was making more money than I ever imagined possible before, I asked for a raise. I even asked for a big raise. I’m not usually someone who enjoys risk, so it seemed a bit out of character for me. However, when I looked at the risk logically, I realized the worst they could do was say no. They had loved me as an employee so far. In fact, they hired one of my friends from college based on my recommendation. If they said no, then they would at least see my eagerness to improve. Although I was very nervous when the words came out of my mouth, just a few short days later, they said yes. If you want to ask for a raise, here are a few tips: Make sure you are going above and beyond your current job description already. Employers love to see eager workers and know that they have people they can count on. They don’t want to lose people who are willing to go above and beyond. Make sure there is no ultimatum implied. When asking for a raise, it may sound like you aren’t happy with your current salary or that you are unhappy with your job. To keep things peaceful, make sure you validate that you appreciate your current situation, too. You can alienate your boss or company if they think you dislike the work and just want more money to justify it. Go in prepared and use numbers. Make sure you go in knowing what you are asking for. Don’t just say, “I want a raise.” Your employer needs to know how much you are looking for. Use numbers to show how much value you are delivering. If your job has any direct relation to creating gross revenue, make sure you explain how much you are bringing in. If you have had a direct impact and have created happier customers or fewer problems with software, and so on, make sure you back up your claim with numbers. You want to make it a no-brainer for your employer to give you a raise, even if they don’t have the funds to pay you now. This will give you a good chance to show how valuable you are. If you don’t feel like you have anything to show them to justify a raise, then go create more impact in your company before you ask for one. If you can’t show your value to an employer, then don’t ask for a raise. If your company is holding you back so you can’t show your value, then ask them for more responsibilities! 3. Starting a business. If your goal is to start a business, start it now as a side hustle. The next few chapters go over finding a solid idea and how millionaires started their businesses. Ahead, you’ll also find help with goal setting and creating a three-month action plan. You want the side hustle to start now so you can start to learn a lot about business while you have the security of your job. It also allows for more income so you can pay off your debt faster. That way you can set yourself up financially to quit your day job. The Eventual Millionaire: How Anyone Can Be an Entrepreneur and Successfully Grow Their Startup You can’t make changes in your life until you begin to see yourself exactly as you are now.3/5/2014
You can’t make radical changes in the pattern of your life until you begin to see yourself exactly as you are now. As soon as you do that, changes will flow naturally. You don’t have to force anything, struggle, or obey rules dictated to you by some authority. It is automatic; you just change. But arriving at that initial insight is quite a task. You have to see who you are and how you are without illusion, judgment, or resistance of any kind. You have to see your place in society and your function as a social being. You have to see your duties and obligations to your fellow human beings, and above all, your responsibility to yourself as an individual living with other individuals. And finally, you have to see all of that clearly as a single unit, an irreducible whole of interrelationship. It sounds complex, but it can occur in a single instant. Mental cultivation through meditation is without rival in helping you achieve this sort of understanding and serene happiness.
“What you are now is the result of what you were. What you will be tomorrow will be the result of what you are now. The consequences of an evil mind will follow you like the cart follows the ox that pulls it. The consequences of a purified mind will follow you like your own shadow. No one can do more for you than your own purified mind—no parent, no relative, no friend, no one. A well-disciplined mind brings happiness.” Throw a stone into a stream. The running water would smooth the stone’s surface, but the inside remains unchanged. Take that same stone and place it in the intense fires of a forge, and it all melts; the whole stone changes inside and out. Civilization changes a person on the outside. Meditation softens a person from within, through and through. Meditation sharpens your concentration and your thinking power. Then, piece by piece, your own subconscious motives and mechanics become clear to you. Your intuition sharpens. The precision of your thought increases, and gradually you come to a direct knowledge of things as they really are, without prejudice and without illusion. Meditation deals with levels of consciousness that lie deeper than conceptual thought. Therefore, some of the experiences of meditation just won’t fit into words. That does not mean, however, that meditation cannot be understood. There are deeper ways to understand things than by the use of words. You understand how to walk. You probably can’t describe the exact order in which your nerve fibers and your muscles contract during that process. But you know how to do it. Meditation needs to be understood that same way—by doing it. It is not something that you can learn in abstract terms, or something to be talked about. It is something to be experienced. Meditation is not a mindless formula that gives automatic and predictable results; you can never really predict exactly what will come up during any particular session. It is an investigation and an experiment, an adventure every time. In fact, this is so true that when you do reach a feeling of predictability and sameness in your practice, you can read that as an indication that you have gotten off track and are headed for stagnation. Learning to look at each second as if it were the first and only second in the universe is essential in vipassana meditation. The purpose of meditation is to develop awareness. Mindfulness in Plain English: 20th Anniversary Edition by Bhante Gunaratana Willpower is the missing link in reaching human potential. Because it’s so crucial, you’ll discover many other situations where you need it. Try out Jeopardy in those everyday moments when you tend to lose your will: getting out of bed in the morning, concentrating in the face of distractions, or restraining the impulse to give in to a bad habit. It works just as well at those heightened moments when you’d like to take your life in a new direction. You might want to start a book, a new business, or move to a new city. You fantasize about it endlessly but you don’t even take step one. We’ll elaborate on these other uses of Jeopardy at the end of this chapter.
Jeopardy is a model for being fully alive. Paradoxically, this sense of life emerges from a relationship with the deathbed version of yourself. Because he knows what it’s like for time to run out, he has the wisdom you need every moment. Invite him into your consciousness, feel him looking at you every moment, and welcome the pressure he puts on you. You’ll move through life with a wind at your back. The consumer expects a reward for the slightest effort—or better, for no effort at all. He cares only about what he gets from the world, not about what he might add to it. Living on the surface, jumping from thing to thing, his energy is diffused, like milk spreading across a tabletop. He makes no impact on the world; when his time on earth is over, it’s as if he never lived. The creator won’t accept that fate. Everything he does is with the intention of making an impact on the world. His code ensures this:
Anyone can live by this code, but very few of us do. It means putting your life in the service of higher forces. These forces can’t be found on the surface of life; they’re found in its depths. The creator’s energy must have the singular focus of a drill boring through stone. As difficult as that is, a creator is rewarded many times over for his efforts. You don’t have to be an artist to be a creator. You can add something to the world in any human activity—even the most routine. Your job, your role as a parent, your relationships, your contribution to your community—all become more meaningful when you put your personal stamp on them using higher forces. The Tools: 5 Tools to Help You Find Courage, Creativity, and Willpower--and Inspire You to Live Life in Forward Motion In essence, worry had become a powerful superstition—with no more real benefit than a rabbit’s foot. But superstitions have a powerful appeal because they give us a magical sense that we can affect the future. Of course, this is an illusion—most of life is beyond our ability to predict, much less control. From a picnic getting rained out to a sudden heart attack—anything can happen at any time. Still, we insist we can control the uncontrollable.
We assume (because science tells us so) that the universe is indifferent to us. Based only on what we see around us, this is a reasonable conclusion. But it makes us feel alone in a universe that doesn’t care about us. Feeling we won’t be provided for, we become obsessed with controlling our future. In that context, worrying seems to make sense. But what if, on a level we can’t see, the universe is interested in our welfare, supporting us in ways large and small? It’s not that much of a stretch to be able to perceive this. Start with your physical body. It extracts oxygen from the air, it digests complex foods, it allows you the miracle of sight and hearing. All these things work amazingly well without your even understanding how. There’s more—the earth supplies us with food, the air we breathe; and it gives us the raw materials with which to build things. And these are just a few examples of the infinite number of ways our existence is sustained by the universe. The Grateful Flow Pick out things in your life you can be grateful for—particularly things you’d normally take for granted. Say them to yourself silently, slowly enough to feel the value of each one. “I’m grateful for my eyesight; I’m grateful I have hot water,” etc. You should do this until you’ve mentioned at least five items—it takes less than thirty seconds. Feel the slight strain of your effort to find these items. You should feel the gratefulness you express flowing upward, directly from your heart. Then, when you’ve finished mentioning the specific items, your heart should continue to generate gratefulness, this time without words. The energy you are now giving out is the Grateful Flow. As this energy emanates from your heart, your chest will soften and open. In this state you’ll feel yourself approaching an overwhelming presence, filled with the power of infinite giving. You’ve made a connection to the Source. Stick to things you’re truly grateful for, not things you feel you should be grateful for. These are often minor things that you might not notice unless they were taken away—like the fact that you had a nice lunch with a friend, for example, or that your electricity works. Patients often ask why we emphasize these minor items. The answer is simple: although we tend to take them for granted, they’re always there You should also make it a daily practice. What Elizabeth had gained was that priceless quality we call perspective. Without perspective, any disappointment can take over your whole life; like a drop of ink in a beaker of water, everything looks dark. Even the smallest setback tends to overwhelm you. Perspective is the ability to see whatever is happening at the moment without losing sight of the enduring, positive nature of life. When your mind is filled with worry, self-hatred, or any other form of negative thinking, you’ve been taken over by the Black Cloud. It limits what you can do with your life, deprives your loved ones of what is best about you. Life becomes a struggle to survive instead of the fulfillment of great promise. What You’re Fighting Against is the unconscious delusion that negative thoughts can control the universe. Because we think the universe is indifferent to us, we cling to the sense of control negative thinking gives us. 1. Start by silently stating to yourself specific things in your life you’re grateful for, particularly items you’d normally take for granted. You can also include bad things that aren’t happening. Go slowly so you really feel the gratefulness for each item. Don’t use the same items each time you use the tool. You should feel a slight strain from having to come up with new ideas. 2. After about thirty seconds, stop thinking and focus on the physical sensation of gratefulness. You’ll feel it coming directly from your heart. This energy you are giving out is the Grateful Flow. 3. As this energy emanates from your heart, your chest will soften and open. In this state you will feel an overwhelming presence approach you, filled with the power of infinite giving. You’ve made a connection to the Source. The Tools: 5 Tools to Help You Find Courage, Creativity, and Willpower--and Inspire You to Live Life in Forward Motion |
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