Sunday, December 16, 2012

Steve Pavlina Personal Development Insights Newsletter Issue #51 - December 12, 2012

SBI 2-for-1 Holiday Special - Save $299

Site Build-It is now running their ever popular 2-for-1 holiday special, which they do every year at this time. With this special you can start two different web-based passive income streams for the price of one of their educational and hosting packages. This is their best deal of the year, and it's good through December 25th.

Many people use one package for themselves and give the second as a gift for a friend or family member. Giving someone a gift that can make them money is a nice way to win them over. :)

See my previous Site Build-It review for more details about this service and why I've been recommending it for years as a great way for people to earn money online.

Compare SBI with Other Options

SBI is one of many options available to you for building a web business. I recommend it because it compares very favorably to the other typical approaches, which don't offer nearly as much value for what they cost.

For details on some comparisons between SBI and other options, see:

Speaking to those last two, I am a very successful pro blogger, and I do use WordPress, but I still recommend SBI as an easier and more effective choice for most people. Review the links above, and you'll understand why.

SBI continues to invest for the benefit of their customers and recently spent millions of dollars upgrading their service, so if you haven't checked it out recently, be sure to give it a fresh look.

Who Can Succeed with SBI?

One suggestion for would-be SBIers: The people who succeed on this path are those who commit to it with a healthy respect for the seriousness of creating and owning a real, honest, value-providing, money-making business. The dabblers who want something for nothing won't get very far. In fact, the various pages on SBI's website frequently seek to weed out the dabbler types and discourage them from signing up for the service. Why? Because those people make lousy customers. Those are the people that give up after a few weeks and ask for a refund (which SBI readily gives them). SBI's business model isn't based on getting a bunch of impulse purchases from flaky dabbler types. SBI wants mature-minded customers who'll build real income streams, so those customers will be making good money and will therefore stick with SBI year after year because they're drawing tremendous value from this type of partnership. And ideally SBI would love to see their customers buying more packages and creating more businesses that endure for years, if not decades.

If you're a dabbler looking for some kind of short-term get rich quick scheme that will magically pay your bills without requiring any actual creative work from you, please don't bother with SBI because it's not intended for those kinds of lazy-minded folks. Rather, SBI is a service that helps entrepreneurially minded people with the tools, education, and hosting they need to build, launch, and successfully manage profitable online businesses that generates stable income year after year.

While SBI is intended for people who are ready to build a real business, this is a matter of attitude and mindset, not a requirement that you be an experienced entrepreneur. The service is designed to hand-hold you through the process if you're just beginning on your entrepreneurial path. Dabblers simply don't do well as entrepreneurs -- or on any serious career path for that matter -- because they're too flaky and don't persist long enough to make it into the long run, where results (especially income) begin to accumulate. So if you know yourself to be the dabbler type, don't expect SBI is cure you of that. For those people I recommend you read my six-part self-discipline series and begin building up your discipline muscles first.

The nice thing about SBI is that you don't have to do it full-time. It's a great fit if you just want a part-time business on the side, such as if you're a student looking to pay off your student loans, a retiree wanting to enjoy extra passive income, or if you simply enjoy working from home and would rather not have to commute to work each day. I've been working from home and quite enjoy it, and when I want a change of pace I can work from anywhere. Right now as I type this, I'm working from a local coffee shop.

If you see yourself as a person with the self-discipline to start an online business today and to still be running it profitably 5 years from now and enjoying the long-term rewards of entrepreneurship, then SBI would be a great match for you. You'll be free to focus on the creative side of the business while SBI handles the technical details and heavy lifting. But if you're the kind of person who switches careers every 6-12 months, then I don't expect SBI would be a good match for you.

It's been said that there are a thousand different success principles, but none of them work without self-discipline.

SBI Case Studies and Proof That It Works

When I tell people about SBI, they often want to see proof and examples of what others have done with it. So if you're curious to hear from some actual SBI users about their experiences with the service, see this page as well as these SBI case studies, success samples, results, and proof.

Using SBI with Different Business Models

SBI is a very flexible platform, so it works with a variety of business models. If you want to learn more about how to use SBI for a variety of online income streams, check out these pages:

Affiliate marketing
Google Adsense
Online auctions
Selling e-goods (like your photos, art, music, etc)
Selling hard goods
Info publishing
Local business with local clients
Network marketing
Real estate
Collecting finder's fees (i.e. generating referrals for other businesses)
Sales and rentals
Selling a service
Making money from travel
Professional webmasters

Fortunately you can also mix and match different income streams, so you're not stuck with just one. I enjoy a variety of income streams from my website, which collectively add up to tens of thousands of dollars per month. Yet many people tell me that when they look at my website, they conclude I'm probably not making much money from it since the site isn't cluttered with a bazillion ads. It's quite possible to build a website that generates plenty of income without turning it into pop-up city.

SBI in Other Languages

SBI is international too, so if you'd like to learn about using their service in a language other than English, see these pages:

If you'd like to learn even more about SBI and connect with them via social media, you can follow them through these outlets:

I'd especially recommend that you follow SBI on Facebook since they occasionally run exclusive specials there.

SBI Questions

Many people have additional questions about SBI and want to make an ultra-informed decision. Starting a web business is indeed an important life decision that you should make with careful consideration. If you have more questions about their service, please take advantage of their special questions form. You can ask anything you want about the service and get a response from an experienced SBI customer.

Share Your Success

Once you have your SBI business up and running, please do let me know about it. I love hearing people's success stories and checking out the different business ideas they're implementing. I've been earning income online since 1995, and most of the money I've earned in my life has come via the Internet (well into the 7 figure range now). I love-love-love that it's possible to make a great living this way without needing a job or a boss. It's a pleasure to connect with like-minded people who are also committed to their freedom, growth, and prosperity.

Incidentally, one of the best perks of having an online business is going out Christmas shopping or traveling and knowing that your website is earning money faster than you're spending it, even when you're not working. If you're not enjoying that sort of reality right now, you could be enjoying a stress-free holiday season like that in the future -- and many more. The same holidays will come up again and again no matter what. Once you get the financial abundance part of your life handled, the holidays are a lot more enjoyable. While it may be true that money can't buy happiness, financial stress can certainly get in the way of happiness for many people, especially at this time of year. A decent online business that brings in extra income month after month and year after year is an effective way to take the pressure off, so you can truly let go of work and enjoy nice moments with friends and family at this time of year.

Only you can decide if SBI is a good fit for you. If it is, here's the sign up page.

The Easiest Way to Build Your Self-Discipline

In this article I'll share a simple tip that's very effective at building lifelong self-discipline, and I'll explain why it works so well.

Here's the tip: Adopt the habit of reading personal growth material for one hour per day.

You can do this 5, 6, or 7 days a week, depending on your level of commitment, but consider 5 days per week to be the minimum.

Personal growth material can be anything that helps you grow. As a rule of thumb, before reading any book, ask yourself: If I read this book now, what difference will it likely make in my life 5 years from now? What do I expect will be the long term impact of reading this book today? If you're not sure or if you can't identify any likely long-term benefits, then that book is probably a waste of your time. Put it down, and select something that's more likely to help you create and experience better results down the road.

This core reading hour may include books that will help you develop valuable knowledge and skills, advance you in your career, help you cultivate positive lifelong habits, improve your health and fitness practices, achieve financial prosperity, improve your social and relationship skills, explore your life purpose, increase your scientific understanding, raise bright and happy children, and so on.

You can still read books purely for pleasure, such as popular novels, but don't include those types of books as part of your personal growth hour unless you're nearly certain that those stories will be transformational for you. Devote that personal growth hour to serious reading with the most practical books you can find.

The best times of day for your reading hour are the first hour after you get up in the morning and the last hour of the day before you go to bed. The first hour, also called the rudder of the day, sets the tone for the rest of the day to follow. And the last hour helps program your mind with positive input before you sleep; you'll often wake up with fresh ideas in the morning based on what you read the night before. If you'd like, you can even split your reading hour between these two time slots. Just aim to read positive, growth-oriented material for about an hour per day. If you want to do more, that's fine too, but the most important thing is to make this a long-term habit. Don't burn yourself out by reading 2-3 hours a day for the first week and then quitting when you get busy.

If you find it too difficult to immediately dive into the practice of reading for an hour per day, then start with 30 or even 15 minutes. Cultivate this habit for 3-4 weeks first, to establish the basic pattern of daily reading. Then if you can manage it, gradually extend the time until you're up to 60 minutes per day. Once you get into the habit of daily reading, it's easy to extend the time.

Adding Disciplined Influences to Your Life

How does this positive reading habit help you build your self-discipline?

First, people who've written complete books tend to be much more disciplined than average -- completing a book and getting it published is hard work -- so you'll be learning ideas and picking up subtle mental influences from fairly disciplined people. This will help counteract the more lazy-minded influences in society, such as you'll be exposed to from television, advertising, web surfing, casual socializing, etc.

Second, if you specifically select books from authors you perceive to be highly disciplined relative to yourself, you'll be adding even more disciplined input to your life. By observing how those authors think and contrasting their thoughts and ideas with those of your least disciplined friends, you'll deepen your understanding of self-discipline. This will help you make wiser, more disciplined choices in your own life.

Neuroplasticity

In the last century, it was believed that the brain went through physical changes in early childhood, but by the time a person reached adulthood, the brain was largely a static organ, no longer experiencing much structural change. Today neuroscientists are finding this to be untrue. Even as an adult, your brain can continue to structurally adapt to changes in your thoughts, feelings, behaviors, and environment. In other words, the way you use your mind causes physical changes in the structure of your brain over time. This is similar to how lifting weights encourages physical changes in your muscles. Your brain's ability to structurally adapt to changing usage patterns is called neuroplasticity.

There's a common expression in personal growth circles: We become what we think about. In the past this phrase was often shared with an air of mysticism, but modern neuroscience reveals that this notion is much more real and physical than was previously thought.

When you expose your mind to daily disciplined influences, your mind spends more time holding disciplined thoughts. This in turn promotes physical changes in your brain's structures, i.e. in how your neurons are arranged and how efficiently they process certain types of information. With more disciplined input, it's likely that the neural circuitry in your brain will become more organized around the theme of self-discipline, so as you age, you'll find it increasingly natural and effortless to take disciplined action. Disciplined input trains your brain for more disciplined thoughts, feelings, beliefs, and behaviors. In other words, disciplined input gives you a more disciplined brain, which makes you a more disciplined person.

You can already see that your body adapts to its inputs. When you eat too much for an extended period of time, you may gain weight. When you endure too much stress for too long, you get sick. When you train your muscles, they get stronger. When you engage in regular cardio exercise, your heart and lungs increase their capacity. These changes are physical and measurable.

Your brain adapts in similar ways. Your thoughts, feelings, and behaviors, when repeated over time, encourage a physical training response in your brain. More neurons may be dedicated to a particular thought pattern, behavior, or emotional state, making it faster and easier to access that state in the future.Neurogenesis may also occur, meaning that new neurons grow, causing the most active regions of your brain to become neurally denser. The more you repeat certain patterns, the more likely it is that your brain will adapt by devoting more neural resources to such processing. Indeed, there is increasing evidence from neuroscience that you become what you think about -- in the sense that your brain is physically molded and shaped in response to the input you give it.

If you repeatedly make excuses, your brain will become increasingly efficient at devising and delivering excuses. If you fall into the habit of being late often, your brain will become ever more efficient at memorizing and triggering behaviors that make you late. If you spend much time worrying, your brain will become more efficient at generating the worry state.

On the upside, the more time you spend learning, the more efficiently your brain can learn. The more you socialize, the more your brain adapts to make you socially competent. The more time you devote to a particular skill path, the more your brain adapts to make you an expert.

All Input Is Training

Because of the way your brain adapts to input over time, it's wise to take more responsibility for the inputs you allow into your life. As you expose your mind to repeated influences, your brain adapts to become more efficient at processing similar patterns. Many people, however, do not choose their inputs carefully. They allow others -- or society at large -- to determine what those influences will be. But since those sources are rarely thoughtful and congruent, their influences tend to be chaotic and haphazard, which leads not only to a chaotic mind, but also to a chaotic and disorganized brain.

All input trains your brain. Watching sitcoms is mental training. Web surfing is mental training. Socializing is mental training. Eating is mental training. Sex is mental training. Lying in bed after your alarm goes off is mental training. Yoga is mental training. Writing is mental training. Complaining is mental training. Visualization is mental training.

The key question is: How do you want to train your brain? What do you want your brain to become more efficient at doing?

Reading Is Brain Training

A simple way to retrain your brain is by changing what you read as well as how often you read. The mental activity of reading creates new patterns of neural firing, which in turn has a training effect on the neural circuitry that gets activated.

In addition to reading, you can also listen to audiobooks. Play quality audiobooks while you do easy physical tasks such as cooking, eating, driving, getting dressed, cleaning, exercising, etc. Or you can simply relax and listen attentively.

I adopted the habit of reading personal growth material more than 20 years ago, and it has served me extremely well. Instead of overtraining my brain with chaotic or narrow-minded inputs that weren't of my choosing, I selected what I believed would be quality influences. I can trace many significant improvements in my life to this simple habit.

I've also noticed that whenever I slack off from this habit, my mental efficiency gradually declines. I grow lazier. My thoughts and feelings become more chaotic and disharmonious. I find it more difficult to focus. I feel more stressed. But as soon as I return to that powerful habit of training my brain with its daily regimen of thoughtful, disciplined input, the benefits I know and love quickly return. "Use it or lose it" is very true.

The lesson is clear: Choose quality inputs for your mind, and train your brain for lifelong success and fulfillment. Your brain will adapt to the training you provide.

If you need some good suggestions to get started, you'll find a list of my favorite personal development books, sorted by category, on my recommended reading page.

Happy holidays!

Please follow me on Twitter and Google+ for inspirational messages and quick updates.

Steve Recommends

Here are my recommendations for products and services that I've personally reviewed and which I believe can help you on your personal growth journey. This is a very short list since it only includes my top picks.

Site Build It! - Build an income-generating website.
Getting Rich with Ebooks - Earn passive income from ebooks.
Lefkoe Method - Permanently eliminate a limiting belief in 20 minutes.
Paraliminals - Accelerate your personal growth.
Sedona Method - Free Audio - Learn to release blocks in a few minutes
The Journal - Keep a secure journal on your PC.
PhotoReading - Read books 3x faster.
Life on Purpose - Discover your life purpose.

Until next time, live consciously!

Tuesday, October 16, 2012

Steve Pavlina Personal Development Insights Newsletter Issue #50

Effortless Success Mindfest - Completely Free for This Weekend Only

Learning Strategies has been streaming a very nice audio program from Jack Canfield on the Law of Attraction this week, called the Effortless Success Mindfest. It's completely free to listen to it online, but they're only making it available through this weekend. So if you have some time this weekend to listen to it (while doing house cleaning or making meals, for instance), this is a very nice program to give you a boost of motivation and action ideas going into next week.

Feel free to read my blog post about the Mindfest, or check out the list of topics on the Effortless Success Mindfest website, and start listening to your first lesson right away. Again, it's free and it only takes a few seconds to sign up.

If you have any difficulties getting access to the course, just drop an email to info@learningstrategies.com, and they'll be happy to walk you through it. I listened to this course years ago and quite enjoyed it.

Morten Hake Summit

I had such an amazing time in Oslo last week, including speaking at the Morten Hake Summit. Thanks so much to everyone who attended. I'd love to speak again there next year!

What Lucid Dreaming Can Teach You About Manifesting

With intention-manifestation the process of receiving an intention is very similar to learning lucid dreaming.

In lucid dreaming you become conscious and aware that you're dreaming. You remember that your real physical body is actually lying in bed asleep, and that what you're perceiving is all happening in your sleeping brain. You remember your waking life and your identity, and you know that the dream world you see is imaginary. This realization gives you the ability to take control of the dream. So you can fly like Superman, teleport, conjure up new scenes and characters, and so on. For a good intro to this topic, listen to the lucid dreaming podcast that Erin and I created several years ago.

When people experience their very first lucid dream, they usually wake up almost immediately, so the experience of lucidity only lasts a few seconds. Why does this happen? It happens because the person, upon realizing they're having their first lucid dream, becomes way too excited. The experience is just too amazing for the person to remain calm, and so their heart rate speeds up, and they jolt themselves awake.

The second or third time someone has a lucid dream, they usually experience the same thing. They instantly get excited, and this excitement kills the dream and wakes them up.

In order to sustain a lucid dream, the person has to learn to remain calm when they realize they're dreaming. They must avoid creating the emotional spikes that will wake them up. Fortunately this is just a matter of practice. Once people learn to stay calm, they can enjoy much longer lucid dreams without waking up so quickly.

The Problem of Excess Excitement

This is essentially what happens when people begin to practice intention-manifestation as well. In order to receive new intentions, the person must learn to receive their manifestations calmly. Otherwise they're actually killing the intention and pushing away their desires.

Suppose you intend to manifest a new relationship partner. So you get clear about the vibe you'd be experiencing if this person was already with you, you practice holding that vibe until you feel quite comfortable with it, and you work through blocks to receiving your intention (shame, fear, guilt, worry, scarcity, etc). If you've been following my blog for a while, then this process is nothing new for you.

Now suppose that this works. Your intention begins to manifest, just as you requested. You begin to notice some potential matches showing up in your life.

The first time this happens, you may have a tendency to get overly excited. You think, Holy crap! This person could be a really awesome match for me... that was fast!

It might seem well and good to feel this much excitement, but when you do this, you'll often find that your early matches quickly fizzle out. Something goes wrong, or you foul something up, and the complete manifestation doesn't really come through. You may even sense that the universe is teasing you by dangling your request in front of you, only to yank it away when you try to grab it.

This happens because that overly excited vibe is not the vibe of receiving. The vibe of receiving is cool, calm, gracious, and relaxed. This is the same vibe that's required to maintain a lucid dream. With lucid dreaming if you get overly excited, you kill the dream. With manifesting intentions if you get overly excited, you kill the manifestation process.

What often happens is that after a while, the person trying to manifest their desire learns to stop spazzing out emotionally whenever their desire begins to show up. Sometimes this happens by accident. They may give up on their intention for a while, and that's when it finally comes through. By not caring about it as much, they stop exuding that crazy, clingy energy that repels desires, and they adopt a cooler and more receptive posture that's aligned with receiving.

How to Stop Spazzing Out

I've been manifesting some pretty amazing desires this year, and one of my biggest challenges has been to avoid spazzing out with over-the-top excitement when they begin to show up.

When an idea that has been a fantasy for a while starts to become an actual reality, it can be quite difficult to receive it calmly and gracefully. Initially you may be very tempted to react, Oh my God! I can't believe this is actually happening! This is too good to be true! Am I really ready for this now? What do I do here? I'd better be careful, or I might screw this up.

When you spaz out with excessive enthusiasm, your thoughts, feelings, and beliefs suggest something like this:

I don't deserve this.
I'm not ready for this yet.
It's too soon.
It's too much.
I need more time to prepare.
This is too good to be true.

But when you can maintain a cool, gracious receptivity, then you're aligning yourself with thoughts, feelings, and beliefs such as:

I'm ready for this now.
No time like the present.
I deserve this.
This is normal for me.
I receive this.
Cool, thanks.

Receiving Gracefully

What if you can't help but feel a big energy build-up when your most exciting desires begin to manifest? How do you contain that energy without spazzing out internally?

If you try to keep that energy bottled up, it will lead to excess excitement. That extra energy has to go somewhere. The key is to release it instead of trying to hold onto it. Otherwise you'll kill the flow, and your desire won't fully manifest. So instead of trying to contain that energy, do your best to keep it moving.

When the universe brings me what I asked for, I return that energy to the universe in the form of gratitude and appreciation. I imagine this excess energy pooling in my heart (or my heart chakra, by imagining a green glowing orb in the center of my chest), and then I send this energy back outwards by holding thoughts such as:

Thank you.
Mmmmmm... this is very nice.
I receive and appreciate this.
I'm grateful for this.
You are making me feel very loved.
I'm glad to be having this experience now.

Quite often I'll say things like the above out loud, either to the people near me (if my desires are manifesting through them) or just aloud to the universe when I'm alone. If I express this gratitude towards people, then I'll usually make it more personal like, "I appreciate having you in my life" or "The way you make love is really beautiful."

I like to take advantage of quiet opportunities to release any extra energy build-up, so that energy can keep flowing. For instance, if I'm on a plane and I'm starting to feel really excited about the trip I'm taking, I might gaze out the window and say a silent "Thank you... this is a really nice experience. I very much appreciate it." to the clouds below. Or if I'm in the using the tiny bathroom on the plane, I'll pause for a moment, look in the mirror, and smile as I say aloud some simple statement like, "I really appreciate being able to travel as much as I do. Thank you."

Even when I've had some physically draining experiences connected to my manifestations -- like when I was traveling continuously for more than 24 hours on 3 different planes last week with no sleep -- I still like to pause now and then to express gratitude for the experience. If I'm receiving what I asked for, even if the act of receiving entails some difficulty, I still want to remain as gracious and receptive as I can under the circumstances. This helps keep the flow going, making it easier and easier for similar intentions to come through.

I know that if I request something from the universe, and the universe delivers essentially what I requested, it's wise receive this gift with a sense of grace, coolness, and deservedness. If I generate excess excitement at the first sign of delivery, then I'm not allowing myself to be a good match for this desire yet. I'm still resisting it on some level.

With practice, you can take intentions that once seemed incredible or out of reach and integrate them into your normal experience of living. Instead of being amazing and exceptional and rare, they can become as simple and real as having breakfast... but with no loss of appreciation for them. When this happens your life will become like a beautiful dream, full of delightful experiences that you relish.

Please follow me on Twitter and Google+ for inspirational messages and quick updates.

Steve Recommends

Getting Rich with Ebooks - Earn passive income from ebooks.
Site Build It! - Build an income-generating website.
Lefkoe Method - Permanently eliminate a limiting belief in 20 minutes.
Paraliminals - Accelerate your personal growth.
Sedona Method - Free Audio - Learn to release blocks in a few minutes
The Journal - Keep a secure journal on your PC.
PhotoReading - Read books 3x faster.
Life on Purpose - Discover your life purpose.

Until next time, live consciously!

Monday, September 24, 2012

Steve Pavlina Newsletter #49 - September 22, 2012

Personal Development Insights #49

Effortless Success Mindfest - Free Online Event

Learning Strategies is hosting yet another Mindfest that you can listen to online, and like their previous Mindfests, it's completely free. They're really on a roll with these...

This one is called the Effortless Success Mindfest, and it's a streaming version of an audio program on the Law of Attraction from Jack Canfield.

I listened to this program on CD several years ago. I liked it and was considering recommending it on my website, but at the time I felt the price was just too high. There were many LoA products that were introduced after the movie The Secret became a hit, and some of them were priced pretty high. If I recall correctly, this program was selling for $800+ when it first came out.

I couldn't see too many people in my audience paying that much money for an audio program, even though it was of good quality, so I didn't recommend it back then. But now that it's available for you to listen for free, I definitely encourage you to check it out. Since it's free, that's a no brainer.

Jack and I normally hang out at leadership retreats twice a year, so I've had the chance to get to know him a bit. He's a seriously dedicated lifelong learner. He's read thousands of books in this field -- including mine -- and he's constantly refreshing his thinking with new ideas. He always has some fascinating new insights to share.

I also like that he's a very heart-centered and playful guy. He clearly enjoys his work and has a lot of fun doing what he does. While he's had a terrific amount of success and fame, especially with his Chicken Soup for the Soul books, The Secret, and The Success Principles, he's very down to earth and easy to talk to. He also gives great hugs. :)

The last time we talked, he asked me about my motivations for doing what I do. I told him that I really don't care about money or success or fame. What I love most is learning, growing, connecting, and sharing, and making a positive difference in people's lives. I love seeing the ripples of this kind of work spreading around the world.

Jack told me his motivation is much the same. He also really likes to stretch himself. Many years ago he worked with W. Clement Stone, and Stone's influence helped Jack to start setting bigger goals -- like making the Chicken Soup books into one of the most successful franchises in history.

Jack is a very open, authentic, and laid back communicator -- about what you'd expect from someone living in Santa Barbara. I think you'll enjoy his relaxed and mellow style. He's the same person on and off the stage, which is a quality I always appreciate in people when I see it.

If you're looking for a really hardcore, left-brained, step by step, Brian Tracy style program, this isn't it. This program focuses on sharing personal lessons, observations, anecdotes, stories, and success habits you can put into practice. It includes many simple tips for keeping yourself motivated.

It's been a while since I listened to this program, but one thing I remember about it was that Jack shares many specific habits that he uses to stay focused on his goals and moving forward with action, such as the Create Your Day meditation and the Rule of Five. You can see the full list of topics on the Effortless Success Mindfest website.

If you'd like to deepen your understanding of the Law of Attraction, learn practical success habits, clarify your goals and intentions, and get help staying focused, then I think you'll really enjoy this program.

If this sounds good to you, you can sign up at Effortless Success Mindfest -- it only takes a few seconds -- and start listening to your first lesson right away. Then you'll receive an email reminder to let you know when the other lessons are posted.

If you have any difficulties getting access to the course, just drop an email to info@learningstrategies.com, and they'll be happy to walk you through it.

Enjoy!

Going to Oslo

I'm going to Oslo to speak at the Morten Hake Summit next weekend. I'm pretty excited about it since this will be my first time in Norway, and I love traveling to new places. :)

If Oslo is an accessible destination and you'd like to hang out with lots of cool growth-oriented people while learning to improve your social skills, connect with people more easily, and learn how to make open relationships work for you, I encourage you to attend. I know that the sales page is geared towards men, but the conference is for men and women alike; plenty of women are already signed up.

This conference is very inexpensive for what it offers -- only $199 USD for the whole weekend. The organizers Morten and Knut could easily charge more, but they want to keep the price low to make it accessible to more people. This is a non-profit event too, and the proceeds go to help schoolgirls in Africa. I'm speaking there for free since I love what they're doing, and I'm delighted to contribute.

If you're able to make it to this conference, please send me a reply to let me know. At least seven or eight readers of my blog (mostly women) have already told me they're going. When you see me there, be sure to walk right up and greet me with a nice warm hug! :)

Erin's Intuition Development Workshop

In case you haven't heard about it, Erin is doing an Intuition Development Workshop in Las Vegas on the weekend of October 6-7. This is the second time she's doing this workshop. Her last one was very well received, and this new one has already outsold the last one. Erin is certainly happy about that. :)

There are still some seats available, so if this workshop (and a trip to Vegas) interests you, I encourage you to attend. Remember that the content is only half of the value; much of the benefit of these workshops comes from the energy of being around other growth-oriented people and the new friends you're sure to make. I've met many great friends at events like these.

I'll be hanging with my kids that weekend, so I won't be at the workshop, but if you're in town then and would like to meet up, please drop me a note to let me know. I could pop down to the Vegas Strip in the evening and hang out for a while. If there are a few people interested, perhaps we can get a group together and walk around the Strip -- it's a fun and lively place to stroll around, especially at night.

Erin also launched a new redesign of her website recently, so if you haven't seen it lately, you may want totake a look. I could really use a design update for my own site too!

How to Overcome Other People's Resistance to Your Desires

I often receive questions from people asking how they can deal with other people's resistance to their goals, dreams, and desires. Maybe you want to travel a lot more, but your spouse resists that idea. Perhaps you'd like to make some positive changes at the office, but your coworkers don't agree. Maybe you want to major in English, but your parents are pressuring you to go into a technical field.

How can you deal with other people's resistance effectively?

First of all, other people's resistance, jealousy, apathy, etc. isn't actually a problem. It may seem like a problem, but it isn't. The real problem is when you resist their resistance.

If people around me resist something I'm doing, and I start pushing back, that's when I get stuck. I can eventually resolve it by recognizing that it's unnecessary -- and certainly not helpful -- to resist resistance. Resisting resistance is a guaranteed recipe for stuckness.

All Resistance Is Internal

Instead of asking, Why are they resisting? How can I get them to stop? I ask myself, Why am I resisting their resistance? Why am I turning their resistance into a problem? Can I just allow them to resist without pushing back?

Once I get myself to a place of deeper acceptance and allowing, then I ask, What am I still resisting internally that's allowing this external resistance to arise in my reality anyway? How can I become a more congruent match for this desire? In what way am I not completely allowing myself to receive this desire now?

A subjective reality perspective is especially helpful here. When I see people and circumstances pushing back against me, I realize that all the external resistance I'm seeing is just a projection of my own internal resistance. It means I'm not congruent with this desire. I don't feel ready to receive it yet.

What am I really resisting then? I'm resisting some part of my desire. Most likely I'm resisting some of the predictable consequences of that desire, like how receiving it might impact my social life, my lifestyle, and so on.

When I resolve my internal resistance, usually by getting myself to a deeper level of acceptance about my desire, then not only is it not a problem to notice other people's resistance, but the external resistance soon goes away altogether. When I stop resisting other people's resistance, they stop resisting me... and soon they even begin supporting me.

When you dissolve your own internal resistance with respect to a desire, you'll see the external resistance dissolve as well. Either the resisting forces will give up and stop resisting, or they'll simply drop off your radar and excuse themselves from your reality.

A Personal Example

When I was warming up to open relationships a few years ago, I certainly saw some resistance from other people. Some people emailed me expletive-filled feedback. Other bloggers wrote long posts attacking me and calling me names. A few people made a point of telling me that clearly I was evil and so they were never going to read my blog again.

Initially I resisted their resistance. I felt I had shared my thoughts openly and honestly, and it seemed that some people were deeply misunderstanding what it was all about. That left me feeling that I needed to explain and defend the idea. But really, why did I bother? I did that because I still needed to explain and defend the idea to myself. Since it was still so new to me, I wasn't completely congruent with it.

As time passed and I became more comfortable with the idea, gained some experience, and understood and appreciated it more deeply myself, I eventually released the bulk of my lingering inner resistance. As this happened, the external resistance faded in lockstep with my inner shifts. Either the critics lost interest and gave up, or they quit visiting my website, or if they said something critical then it didn't even register to me.

Today I'm hard pressed to notice any criticism about this lifestyle choice. When I share something about open relationships now, all I see is curiosity and support from others, or in the worst case some indifference from people who aren't into that sort of thing. But I don't see any resistance about this in my external world.

This morning I was even joking around with friends while playing disc golf, playfully referring to this aspect of my lifestyle as polygamy -- a totally inaccurate term since I have no interest in multiple wives, but to me it didn't matter. I don't need people to understand it, I don't need approval for it, and I feel no need to defend it. I'm content to simply welcome and enjoy it.

If someone did have an issue with this part of my life, it wouldn't make any difference to me anyway. It would be like someone criticizing me for having blue eyes. I completely accept that I have blue eyes, and so if someone were to criticize me for that, there's no basis for me to resist their resistance. That kind of statement probably wouldn't even register as criticism to me. It might register as goofy behavior, but it wouldn't affect my choices in any meaningful way, and I certainly wouldn't feel a need to defend my eye color.

Part of my initial resistance to exploring open relationships was that it was going to cause some big lifestyle adjustments. There wasn't any specific part of it that I can recall being an issue for me. It was just the overall package of having to adapt to a different way of handling my relationship life. I wasn't sure what to expect. Mostly what I resisted was the unknown.

Changing Others Isn't the Answer

When you're a good match for a goal or desire, other people's resistance doesn't matter. Often it doesn't even register. If it's there at all, you probably won't even notice. Any attempt at resistance becomes background noise that you automatically tune out, like not paying attention to other people's conversations when you walk down the street.

What triggers you to notice and even to obsess about other people's resistance is your own inner resistance to your desires.

If you try to change other people by working on them, but you don't address your own lack of congruence, you'll just drive the resistance underground. Even if you work really hard to convince other people to support you, they'll still resist you, just in more subtle ways than before. As the saying goes, A man convinced against his will is of the same opinion still.

Trying to use force simply drives your resistance deeper into your subconscious. This can cause you to get stuck in denial. On the surface it may look like your resistance has diminished, but then it rears its ugly head further down the road in the form of procrastination or brutal self-sabotage. So it's really best to avoid trying to attack the external resistance directly.

Instead of an external attack using force, turn within and become super curious. I love to use journaling to figure out where I'm still incongruent and how I can allow myself to receive my desire without pushing it away in some manner.

If you can't figure this out on your own, then ask a friend if they can see why you might be blocking yourself. Really listen to what they say and see if it rings true for you. If you resist their answer, that's a telltale sign that it holds some degree of truth.

If you wish to make a turn a new desire into a reality, such as making great money doing what you love, or manifesting a rich and abundant social life, and it looks like your reality is putting up roadblocks, then realize that all of that resistance is inside you. After all, where is this external reality? It's all in your mind. Whatever sense you have of your external reality is just a collection of memories, thoughts, and expectations.

No one is standing in your way. Circumstances, such as a lack of time, a lack of money, or a lack of know-how aren't stopping you either. When you treat those things as obstacles, you invite stuckness. When you instead regard external resistance as feedback that points to your own inner resistance, then you can use that feedback to let go, get unblocked, and truly welcome your desire and all its rippling aftereffects. When you're finally ready to receive, your desire can manifest so quickly that it will make your head spin!

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Until next time, live consciously!