I began to experiment by combining CrossFit, Ninjitsu and Ashtanga into my training regimen and toughness has three secrets—controlling the body, the mind, and the emotions.
The major lesson I gained from my journey into Zen was that I could gain control over my mind if I practiced. The key was to learn to be silent, truly, in your mind silent. When you are silent, you can then witness the mind in action. In doing so you begin to separate your identity from “the thoughts” and get acquainted with that part of you watching the thoughts. That space between the thought and the watcher—your witness—is where the magic is. Absent that space, efforts to develop concentration, confidence, creativity, and spirit fall short. Victorious warriors win first and then go to war, while defeated warriors go to war first and then seek to win. —Sun Tzu Step 1: The first step is to focus your mind and prevent it from running all over the place. Step 2: As you discipline your monkey mind, you will begin to learn to connect with your internal witness. This is that part of you that is untethered from your ego. As you connect and identify with your witness, versus your ego, you will begin to protect your mind from negative and defeating influences. Those influences include fear-based thoughts, negative internal feelings, and negative external influences. Rooting out negative emotions, beliefs, and behaviors that will hold you back can take much time and effort. Step 3: This step is to feed your unfettered mind with super-food for success. This food is in the form of powerful, positive imagery as well as positive emotions directed toward your desired future states, skills, and victories. Step 4: In this step you activate a daily training plan to nurture your internal vision through repeated practice and to prepare for the fifth and final step, which is to… Step 5: Take massive action, and recruit like-minded teammates to align with your vision and help you win your missions, every time. Fish Bowl Guided Visualization Find a comfortable place to sit in a chair, on a cushion, or on a stool. The key is to keep your spine straight and to avoid discomfort that will capture your mind. Begin the practice by closing your eyes and scanning your body from toes to head. This is a sensitivity awareness drill that can also be done as a stand-alone awareness deepening exercise. It will bring your mental attention to parts of your body one at a time. Now you are ready to clear your mind completely using the fish bowl technique. In your mind, imagine your skull as a fish bowl and your thoughts are the cloudy, murky water (not too far from the truth, I might add!). Your breathing is the filter. Each deep breath you take in and out is a cleansing breath that begins to clear the murky water of your mind. You begin to sense the water of your mind getting cleaner and clearer as you breathe. After ten breaths it is mostly clean; after twenty it is as pure as a natural spring on a sunny day. As you imagine the clarity of your mind, you realize that what you are witnessing is a “no mind” state. In this state your mind is unspoiled by thinking. You maintain that state as long as you can. If you start thinking again, your fish bowl gets dirty and you can recommit to cleaning it. Unbeatable Mind: Forge Resiliency and Mental Toughness to Succeed at an Elite Level Being outnumbered, coming from behind, being low on funds, these don’t have to be disadvantages.6/24/2014
We spend a lot of time thinking about how things are supposed to be, or what the rules say we should do. Trying to get it all perfect. We tell ourselves that we’ll get started once the conditions are right, or once we’re sure we can trust this or that. When, really, it’d be better to focus on making due with what we’ve got. On focusing on results instead of pretty methods. As they say in Brazilian jujitsu, it doesn’t matter how you get your opponents to the ground, after all, only that you take them down.
How are you going to solve this problem? How are you going to get around the rules that hold you back? Maybe you’ll need to be a little more cunning or conniving than feels comfortable. Sometimes that requires ignoring some outdated regulations or asking for forgiveness from management later rather than for permission (which would be denied) right now. But if you’ve got an important mission, all that matters is that you accomplish it. Pragmatism is not so much realism as flexibility. There are a lot of ways to get from point A to point B. It doesn’t have to be a straight line. It’s just got to get you where you need to go. But so many of us spend so much time looking for the perfect solution that we pass up what’s right in front of us. Take a step back, then go around the problem. Find some leverage. Approach from what is called the “line of least expectation.” Being outnumbered, coming from behind, being low on funds, these don’t have to be disadvantages. They can be gifts. Assets that make us less likely to commit suicide with a head-to-head attack. These things force us to be creative, to find workarounds, to sublimate the ego and do anything to win besides challenging our enemies where they are strongest. These are the signs that tell us to approach from an oblique angle. The Obstacle Is the Way: The Timeless Art of Turning Trials into Triumph Here are the 8 key business trends affecting us all today:
1. Global marketplace gets personal To take advantage of this you will need to excel at producing specialized products and services to meet the personalization demands of customers. This means catering to your target audience with specific language and location-based features like Viewsy, a location analytics solution for the physical stores to better understand their foot traffic. 2. The rise of the entrepreneur Small businesses are already taking advantage of web and mobile technologies that allow them to take on the corporate giants, with customers no longer knowing, or even caring about the size of the firm that provides their goods and services. 3. Virtual workforces explode We have already shifted towards a flexible, on-demand workforce that enables businesses of all sizes to get more done with less. This mobile and virtual workforce can scale according to your needs and demands. 4. Mobile domination is calling As technology prices fall, the adoption of sophisticated mobile technologies will continue to permeate our everyday lives. In time, smartphones will replace or bypass desktops and laptops and will emerge as the new standard for both businesses and consumers. 5. Consumers are the new CEOs From our reliance on (and increasing addiction to) mobiles, and with smartphones becoming smarter, our ability to have real influence as consumers grows. We can make more informed decisions about what we purchase and why. 6. Social is your business foundation Social media has transformed the way we market, sell and serve our customers. Platforms like Facebook, YouTube and Google Plus have made this consumer power even more possible. 7. Digital currency is king It’s becoming easier and more accessible to do online banking and to make mobile payments. Digital wallets like Google Wallet and smartphone apps from major banks are opening the door for us to manage our finances from anywhere and to make payments from anywhere. As consumers become more trusting, we will find ourselves in an increasingly cashless society, turning to tools like Trustev. This is a real-time, online verification for shopping online that uses social fingerprinting technology to create a real and visible relationship between consumer and retailer. 8. Crowdfunding is the new angel investor You don’t need to hit up investors anymore and give away large chunks of control of your company, instead you just need to turn to one of over 500 crowd funding sites to finance your dreams. In fact, it’s such an important trend, that I wrote a book on it: How to Fund Your Dream Idea on Kickstarter. “It’s not about how you work 10 times harder. It’s about how you work 10 times smarter and everything to do with how you find a wave that’s 10 times bigger. It doesn’t matter what kind of business you’re in, there’s going to be a way for you to leverage waves.” ~ Roger Hamilton, author of Fast Forward Your Business. The trick to taking advantage of these “waves” is to pick the ones you can ride most effectively. Imagine you’re a surfer. You want to catch these waves early and then ride them all the way to the beach. But first you need to learn how to catch the wave and get up on the board. So let’s start paddling. The Suitcase Entrepreneur: Create freedom in business and adventure in life Failure really can be an asset if what you’re trying to do is improve, learn, or do something new.6/18/2014
Failure really can be an asset if what you’re trying to do is improve, learn, or do something new. It’s the preceding feature of nearly all successes. There’s nothing shameful about being wrong, about changing course. Each time it happens we have new options. Problems become opportunities.
And that means changing the relationship with failure. It means iterating, failing, and improving. Our capacity to try, try, try is inextricably linked with our ability and tolerance to fail, fail, fail. On the path to successful action, we will fail—possibly many times. And that’s okay. It can be a good thing, even. Action and failure are two sides of the same coin. One doesn’t come without the other. What breaks this critical connection down is when people stop acting—because they’ve taken failure the wrong way. When failure does come, ask: What went wrong here? What can be improved? What am I missing? This helps birth alternative ways of doing what needs to be done, ways that are often much better than what we started with. Failure puts you in corners you have to think your way out of. It is a source of breakthroughs. This is why stories of great success are often preceded by epic failure—because the people in them went back to the drawing board. They weren’t ashamed to fail, but spurred on, piqued by it. Sometimes in sports it takes a close loss to finally convince an underdog that they’ve got the ability to compete that competitor that had intimidated (and beat) them for so long. The loss might be painful, but as Franklin put it, it can also instruct. Great entrepreneurs are: never wedded to a position never afraid to lose a little of their investment never bitter or embarrassed never out of the game for long. It’s time you understand that the world is telling you something with each and every failure and action. It’s feedback—giving you precise instructions on how to improve, it’s trying to wake you up from your cluelessness. It’s trying to teach you something. The Obstacle Is the Way: The Timeless Art of Turning Trials into Triumph You will come across obstacles in life—fair and unfair. And you will discover, time and time again, that what matters most is not what these obstacles are but how we see them, how we react to them, and whether we keep our composure.
You will learn that this reaction determines how successful we will be in overcoming—or possibly thriving because of—them. Where one person sees a crisis, another can see opportunity. Where one is blinded by success, another sees reality with ruthless objectivity. Where one loses control of emotions, another can remain calm. Desperation, despair, fear, powerlessness—these reactions are functions of our perceptions. We can stop seeing the “problems” in front of us as problems. We can learn to focus on what things really are. There are a few things to keep in mind when faced with a seemingly insurmountable obstacle. We must try: To be objective To control emotions and keep an even keel To choose to see the good in a situation To steady our nerves To ignore what disturbs or limits others To place things in perspective To revert to the present moment To focus on what can be controlled This is how you see the opportunity within the obstacle. It does not happen on its own. It is a process—one that results from self-discipline and logic. And that logic is available to you. You just need to deploy it. Choose not to be harmed—and you won’t feel harmed. Don’t feel harmed—and you haven’t been. —MARCUS AURELIUS We decide what we will make of each and every situation. We decide whether we’ll break or whether we’ll resist. We decide whether we’ll assent or reject. No one can force us to give up or to believe something that is untrue (such as, that a situation is absolutely hopeless or impossible to improve). Our perceptions are the thing that we’re in complete control of. They can throw us in jail, label us, deprive us of our possessions, but they’ll never control our thoughts, our beliefs, our reactions. Which is to say, we are never completely powerless. The Obstacle Is the Way: The Timeless Art of Turning Trials into Triumph It doesn’t matter what type of government we are talking about, whatever its laws or economic policies are, there are two types of people in the economy: owners and laborers. Most of us are both; but the majority of the population makes very little from assets owned in comparison to the compensation received for labor. Most of us are laborers first, and owners second, if at all.
The modern Slacker isn’t lazy or making a political statement when he decides not to work for (a large company)....no, he or she has simply realized that as all systems of production become more efficient, he/she would rather profit directly from those efficiencies. The modern Slacker would rather be an owner than be a laborer. New Slacker Values It’s pretty simple really, we choose:
It’s really easy to say that you are not as materialistic as your neighbors, but it's a much different thing to live a minimalist lifestyle—one with few possessions. You can say that your family is more important than your job, but actually sacrificing work opportunities to raise your children full-time is a whole different thing. People will tell you that they don’t believe in living with debt, but those same folks carry car payments or credit card debt. And anyone can tell you that they follow their heart, but then live the exact same lifestyle that their family and friends do. The proof is in action, not talk. If you live by a strict schedule and firm plan, you aren’t free anymore—you start answering to, “the plan.” If you can’t learn to make it up as you go along, you’ve just traded your job and your mortgage for a new set of self-imposed obligations. That’s not freedom. Too many people don’t work hard to fulfill a particular purpose, but rather to escape a sense of purposelessness—the working and consuming itself becomes the purpose. Live on the Margin Everyone is continually receiving impulses that must be directed and controlled if one is to lead a successful life.
That is the reason why a person must control the movements of his eyes, feet, fingers, etc.; this is another reason why it is important to control his breathing. The slow, deep, prolonged exhalations are of wonderful value. They steady the circulation, the heart action, muscles and nerves of the mind. If the heart flutters, the circulation is not regular, and when the lung action is uneven, the mind becomes unsteady and not fit for concentration. This is why controlled breathing is very important as a foundation for physical health. You must not only concentrate your mind, but also the action of the eyes, ears and fingers. Each of these contain miniature minds that are controlled by the master engineer. You will develop much quicker if you thoroughly realize this. Be careful of your desires, make a mental picture of what you want and set your will to this until it materializes. Never allow yourself to drift without helm or rudder. Know what you want to do, and strive with all your might to do it, and you will succeed. Feel that you can accomplish anything you undertake. Many undertake to do things, but feel when they start they are going to fail and usually they do. I will give an illustration. A man goes to a store for an article. The clerk says, "I am sorry, we have not it." But the man that is determined to get that thing inquires if he doesn't know where he can get it. Again receiving an unsatisfactory answer the determined buyer consults the manager and finally he finds where the article can be bought. That is the whole secret of concentrating on getting what you want. And, remember, your soul is a center of all-power, and you can accomplish what you will to. "I'll find a way or make one!" is the spirit that wins. Don't waste your mental powers in wishes. Don't dissipate your energies by trying to satisfy every whim. Concentrate on doing something really worth while. The man that sticks to something is not the man that fails. "Power to him who power exerts."—Emerson. The Power of Concentration What is a professional, anyway?
A professional is someone who can keep working at a high level of effort and ethics, no matter what is going on—for good or ill—around him or inside him. A professional shows up every day. A professional plays hurt. A professional takes neither success nor failure personally. In the end, for me, it comes down to the work itself. A pro gets younger and more innocent as he or she ascends through the levels. It’s a paradox. We get salty and cynical, but we creep closer, too, to the wonder. You have to or you can’t keep going. Any other motivation will burn you out. You develop a practice, and the practice gets simpler and less self-oriented over time. We rise through the levels of professionalism by a process of surrender. We surrender to our gift, whatever that may be. Manage Your Day-to-Day: Build Your Routine, Find Your Focus, and Sharpen Your Creative Mind (The 99U Book Series) "Social" intelligence consists of two components, both equally important to master.
First, there is what we shall call specific knowledge of human nature—namely the ability to read people, to get a feel for how they see the world, and to understand their individuality. Second, there is the general knowledge of human nature, which means accumulating an understanding of the overall patterns of human behavior that transcend us as individuals, including some of the darker qualities we often disregard. Mastery by Robert Greene Most of the time, independent thought and first-person analysis are worth more than blind faith in any “expert” opinion, and that’s the case in every area of life. In our experience, the keys to success in any endeavor, whether we are talking about trading or quitting your job and untying your dock lines to sail across vast oceans—or whatever—it all boils down to this:
We aren’t satisfied risking X in hopes of making a fraction of X. Instead we want to risk X for the potential of receiving 2X or 5X or 10X. We want to leverage our assets to increase our reward disproportionately to the risks we are taking. Every dollar and every cent can be used in one of two ways:
Wealthy people use a small percentage of their net worth to live on. Living on less changes everything My philosophy is that when life puts a fork in the road the riskier choice is most often the most rewarding. To reach where you want to be in life, it's highly unlikely that a series of simple risk-free choices will lead you where you want to go. When you owe money to someone, whether a bank, corporation, or an individual, they own you and the rights to the fruits of your labor (your production) until that debt is repaid. If you’re in that small minority who owns their house outright, doesn’t carry any debt and has cash in the bank—we know what you’re saying to yourself right now: I don’t owe anything to anyone, so I’m free. Sure you are. What about income tax? Sales tax? Property tax? You will still owe those, no matter what. If you choose not to pay the IRS for long enough, they’ll take that house and haul you off to jail. There is also inflation to consider. The Federal Reserve puts more and more money into circulation every year, making your cash worth less and less all the time. That means that unless your assets appreciate faster than the rate of inflation, they are worth less and less all the time, too. So you can see that no matter what your net worth is and no matter how little debt you have, you are continually swimming upstream as debt, tax obligation, and inflation eat away at your assets. The most important and pervasive reason the American Dream has become more dream and less reality is a fundamental lack of real value creation. Live on the Margin |
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Some of the links in the post above are “affiliate links.” This means if you click on the link and purchase the item, I will receive an affiliate commission. Regardless, I only recommend products or services I use personally and believe will add value to my readers. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255: “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.” |