How often have you felt harassed and traumatized by the pace of life? So much has been written about stress and burnout, and thousands suffer from it every year. We assume people are tired and worn because they are going too fast—that’s the easy thing to do. But I’ve discovered that slowing down and directing my energies with focus allows me to move calmly and with confidence—and get much more accomplished! When you remove worry and uncertainty from your life, you can calmly and swiftly evaluate the steps that will move you toward your goals.
Millions of people long for peace in their lives because they live in absolute chaos. Their relationships are volatile, their careers oppressive, and their finances on the verge of collapse. I promised you at the very beginning of this book that I would tell you the truth; if you are living in chaos right now, I can tell you that it’s because you have chosen to do so. This may be hard to accept, but if you have any doubts, a quick evaluation will reveal the truth of this.
Take a look at the people you spend time around—family, friends or coworkers. How many of them make large demands on your time? How many of them return the favor, and how many take advantage? Learn the difference, and distance yourself from those who deplete your time to protect your own well-being.
Sometimes this distance only needs to be temporary to be effective; but you can’t change your way of thinking if old paradigms surround you. Going on a week-long vacation can be very effective in changing a state of mind. Once you return to your normal life, it will be crystal clear which people in your life are generating the negative energy you need to avoid.
If you dread your job each and every day, why do you stay? Have you ever tried to earn some sort of passive income and rescue yourself—or do you just accept it as your lot in life? If you are reading this book, you have probably read others about wealth creating; but have you really tried anything that these books have suggested? You left them on the shelf to gather dust.
Finances are the main source of chaos in most people’s lives. But they keep doing things that create even more chaos. Because they have a mindset of lack, they focus all their energies on what they don’t have. And what do they attract into their lives? More of the same. They end up engaging in behaviors that escalate their debt, and devalue their time.
Take Amy as an example:
I was in my late twenties and a single mother when I felt my life had spun out of control. I dated men who were emotionally needy and demanded a lot of time. My daughter was four and a constant source of stress. I couldn’t seem to get her to do anything I asked.
I’d worked as a billing clerk for four years and made very little money. I was always strapped for cash. I never seemed to be able to have the things other people didn’t think twice about. I’d never even been able to take a vacation. I spent my days off at home worrying how to make ends meet the next month.
One summer my boss asked if I’d be interested in helping a friend of hers on weekends as a personal assistant. I jumped at the idea, thinking that this could give me a little bit of extra money. The woman’s name was Linda, and she worked out of her home, running a network marketing business.
I went to her home every weekend. I was just astounded at how this woman lived. She didn’t seem to worry about anything! I couldn’t comprehend it. Money seemed to flow directly to her like magic. I watched her closely, trying to figure out what made her so special; but she seemed, well, normal. I just didn’t get it. After a few weeks, my frustration finally got the best of me. I blurted out that it just wasn’t fair—life was so easy for her, and so hard for me.
Linda sat me down. She was very direct. She said that I was a virtual Chaos Magnet, and that my results were due to the way I thought about life. She said over and over that I’d created the life I was living, and that the only way I would ever change was to choose to change my thoughts.
I went home and cried my eyes out—not because she was wrong, but because she was right. I had done this to myself. I could look back and pinpoint every single choice I made that put me right where I was.
That summer was a turning point. I learned to remove the chaos from my life and create a wealthy mindset. I joined the same company as Linda, and grew my own business with her guidance. The new, calm confidence that I gained attracted different people into my life. Soon, I had a supportive and loving partner. As I reduced or eliminated my unimportant activities, and chose to inject more calm into my life, my daughter suddenly became more obedient. She had been suffering from the negative chaos I had created, and her rebellion was how she demonstrated the stress.
My life is now peaceful and serene. I no longer worry about money. I will never be a Chaos Magnet again!
Before she took responsibility for her situation, Amy complained that life was unfair. This is pretty common. But she found that it was completely fair: She had made the choices that created what she was currently experiencing as chaos. You can choose chaos, or you can choose peace—it all hinges on the willingness to take responsibility. And that’s up to you!
Remember when we talked about prioritizing your activities? We said that you should reduce or eliminate as many unimportant tasks as you can. This will give you time and energy to focus on your path—the path that will lead you to your goals. I can confidently say that as much as 50% of what most people do every day is completely unimportant in the grand scheme of things. I’ll also tell you how hard it is to avoid getting sucked in by urgent little tasks. You seem to face them constantly, I know. They just won’t go away, and it can take some practice to learn to say no. At the very least, put them off to a better time so you don’t get distracted from what’s important.
A great deal has been written on the subject of multitasking—the ability to do many things at once. Some suggest that this is a way to be more efficient. This is one of the great fallacies of our era. If you split your focus, you can’t do any of the tasks very well. And this split focus can be very dangerous indeed. Think of driving and talking on your cellphone, all while reading a map! You won’t really know where you’re going, you won’t have much of a conversation—and you might find yourself off the road!
Think of this as a metaphor for the new path you’re trying to create. There’s chatter in your ear and you don’t really know where you’re going—but you’re going nonetheless. Think about which of these is most important: Naturally, I would say the map. But how many people have you driven by, chatting away, one hand on the wheel, map spread on their laps? They’ve chosen to believe that, by cramming more actions on top of actions, they are getting more or better results.
Like most other paradigms accepted by the masses, this is completely backward. Why do you think that most very wealthy people hire someone to drive them where they need to go? So they can concentrate on something else and use that time effectively without risking their lives. They understand the power of focusing completely in order to have the best outcome.
Even if we’re using our time very effectively through focusing on our goals, it doesn’t mean that we should just go, go, go. Your mind needs rest; so you need to find a balance, alternating between action, evaluation and rest. Often, when we go as fast as we can, it’s just a mask for fear; we think that, if we cram as much as we can into every minute, then we’ll surely succeed. But if you slow down and really look at what you’re accomplishing, you’ll see that you are doing everything—except what’s really important. You can’t achieve great results through sheer volume of activity; so much of this activity is wasted energy.
There is a quote by Mohandas Gandhi I like very much: “There is more to life than increasing its speed.” Advances in technology have sped our lives up substantially in the past century, and certainly, it has improved our lives. But it also increases the chance that low priority, and mundane activities will compete with truly important ones for our time. The result is a frantic and chaotic lifestyle. There are just so many tasks we can accomplish; too many of us take this as justification that we need to do all of them.
We may think these are tiny things that don’t take much time or effort; but we waste so much energy separating and prioritizing all these tasks. Expending this energy steals from energy that should be devoted to important tasks—the ones that move us to our goals.
This ‘do everything’ mindset creates a panic: the more you try to do, the greater that panic increases; you feel the horrible stress of being “behind.” This is why it is so important to step back and prioritize. You have to be willing to let the unimportant go; after all, you’ll need your sanity if you want to accomplish anything significant!
You need to understand that, while you have the power to choose, you simply can’t choose everything. Think of small children in a candy shop. They want to have everything, but their hands—and stomachs!—only hold so much. Even realizing this, you’ll see them grabbing new things, dropping others—still trying to do the impossible, and making a mess because of it. And this can go on for hours! If the child’s parent had told them at the beginning they could only have one or two, he or she would have spent time evaluating which one they really wanted. It would have made them focus—and the goal, of getting the best candy that brings about the most satisfaction, would have been accomplished that much quicker, taking much less time and energy.
Now think of that situation in terms of your own life. Set rules for yourself the same way. You know there is a limited amount of time; you have to have a way to evaluate what you do with it, or you accomplish nothing. You need to have wisdom to effectively evaluate the tasks, and integrity and fortitude to make the critical tradeoffs for those things you must let go.
The masses are fascinated by the sensational. The tedious details of celebrity lives provide a steady stream of mindless drivel that more and more people accept as their normal media diet. The more controversial and outlandish, the more attention it receives. Even though the very people who live their lives with this sort of notoriety often destroy themselves, millions dream of being just like them. They mimic the behavior they see, and often bring tremendous amounts of drama and stress to their lives.
Those who seek wealth cannot be pulled into this drama. They must learn to think critically. This includes identifying and evaluating our existing paradigms. Which ones help you, which hold you back? Where did they come from and what is the real truth that needs to be acknowledged for real change to happen?
We all think, all the time. However, much of our thinking is a direct reflection of the ideas we’ve accumulated, and the paradigms we’ve created and accepted as a result. We rarely stop and question these assumptions before we allow them to affect our lives and influence our results. For this reason, much of your thinking will be biased, distorted, partial, uninformed or downright wrong.
Now think about it: The quality of your life depends precisely on the quality of your thoughts. Poor thinking is costly, both in terms of money and in quality of life. Excellence in thought, however, can be learned and actively cultivated.
Critical thinking is not innate or natural in anyone. Even those who are normally very critical in their thought process can be subject to episodes of undisciplined or irrational thought. This is especially true with very emotional moments, or thoughts that challenge a deeply held paradigm.
Quality thought is typically a matter of degree. Among other things, it depends on the quality and depth of experience in a given area. No one is a critical thinker through-and-through; critical thinking is achievable only to a particular level, and that level can change. For this reason, the development of critical thinking skills is a life-long endeavor. You never stop learning or improving your skills to think critically—nor should you be too hard on yourself for the occasional lapse.
I can’t stress this enough: Critical thinking involves continual learning. I consider myself a lifetime student of all areas of personal growth. No one can ever learn all there is to know about how we think, or what motivates us to live our dreams. But we can all be students of life. This means exploring new ideas; whether that’s done by reading, listening, watching, conversing, learning from others, or actually trying—perhaps starting a new business. We should all keep our minds open to what each and every one of these activities can teach us.
Lifelong learning is a willingness to keep exploring the many adventures that life has to offer. The benefits of this willingness are tremendous. You develop a greater enthusiasm for life. Your self esteem increases, along with your self-respect. You’re more interested and engaged in the world around you. Perhaps most importantly, you are a conduit for new ideas that you can pass on to those around you. You become what you seek—an instrument for life-long learning.
I’m often asked how to balance self-acceptance with the urge for growth and development of a wealthy mindset. It’s important to aim for improvement in every area of life. But we all start at different levels on the ascent to a wealthy mindset. Remember that there is no reason to feel badly if someone seems to be ascending more quickly than you—and more importantly, those kinds of feelings of self-doubt are very counter-productive, as the law of attraction shows us.
It’s also no excuse to give up and accept where you are. The point of the journey you’ve begun is to understand why you are the way you are, and what concepts shape your thoughts. Critically appraising your situation, and how you got there, is very different from using self-acceptance as an excuse to hide and never try.
Most people are caught somewhere in between being fully committed to their goals and accepting their current lot. Lots of people hold on to the idea that, if you commit to improving yourself every day, you obviously don’t accept who you are today. Nonsense!
These ideas stem from the same backward thinking—and they are just as wrong! If you accept responsibility for your decisions and the results you have achieved in your life so far, you’ll be far more able to move on and make better decisions that produce better results.
A huge stumbler with self-acceptance for most people is simply that they don’t see themselves accurately to begin with. They’ll have a warped—and often negative—self-image, which prevents them from seeing things in realistic terms. Our self-image is developed over our whole lives, and it changes over time. If you’ve ever had the same problems with money surface time and again, or you had a business that failed or had to declare bankruptcy, you may develop the idea that you’re no good with money and it’s hopeless to try.
By now, I hope you know this simply isn’t true. The tools for managing money can be learned by anyone. So you’re not “bad with money”—you just never learned how to manage it, or attract it into your life. It can easily be fixed—but if you’ve developed a self-image with this idea of being “bad with money” as an absolute, you may never accept what’s really possible.
Self-image is the personal view you have of yourself. If it’s negative, it hampers your attempt to change. Your self-image allows you to create labels that describe who you are, and what you can do. These labels might include things like smart, wealthy, and creative. They might also include things like stupid, fat, or worthless. These labels form an overall view of the balance of our good and bad qualities.
Self-image is a learned assumption of who we are. Parents and teachers often make the first and greatest contribution to our overall self-image. How they respond to us and treat us develops the picture in our mind of who we are. As we’re exposed to friends and relatives, this image becomes more defined. By the time we reach adulthood, relationships and experiences reinforce what we think and feel about ourselves.
The image you see in your mind could be an accurate reflection of who you are, but most often, it’s distorted. The strengths and weaknesses learned as a child become internalized, and affect your results as an adult. This self-image is not static; it is dynamic and ever-changing. We constantly evaluate how others respond to us, and how we feel about that response. We compare ourselves, and develop an idea of where we rank. This gives us a sense of our overall value to others, and to society as a whole.
The fact that your self-image can be changed allows you to develop a healthier and more accurate view of yourself; this means you can also alter the distortions that limit your progress. But to effect this change, you must first be able to step back and evaluate your own self-image.
What ideas do you have about yourself and what labels have you created? Let’s take this one: “I’m stupid.” This often stems from something you heard, or a specific incident when you were young that caused embarrassment or fear. Children frequently interpret these emotions as “feeling stupid.” As this mental label is carried forward, it seems natural to assume that you are stupid; and you limit yourself believing that difficult things aren’t worth even trying, because you can’t possibly succeed.
This is an awful circumstance, made even more so by how far from the truth it really is. First, you have to understand that you are just as smart as anyone else. And besides, as we’ve discussed, you don’t have to be a genius, or have a great deal of education, to become wealthy. You need to also look at all of the labels that you have for yourself, and realize they may well stem from a childhood assumption that is completely unfounded.
Next, you have to stop ranking yourself. This is an internal version of the comparison paradox: You judge whether you are smart, beautiful or well-off compared to those around you. This is how most of us come up with the idea that we are average: in comparison to our peers, we seem about the same.
But you’re a unique and individual person. Your worth cannot be measured by comparison to anyone: There is no-one else who is exactly like you. In other words, you’re priceless and incomparable. How could you ever consider that you would be worth less than anyone else?
For a number of years, I have told audiences all over the world that, if they want to live a healthier, happier, more productive life, they should learn how to maintain calmness. To achieve this, there are two things I recommend. There is a lady I know who teaches this better than anyone else I know. She is not connected with our company and I receive no material compensation for recommending her. I mention that because she is very good and I encourage you to take advantage of her services. Visit www.calmconfidence.com.
And, secondly, in his classic, As A Man Thinketh, James Allen has dedicated the last chapter to Serenity. I encourage you to rewrite this chapter by hand, carry it with you and read it twice a day—just after you wake up and just before you go to sleep. Visit www.bobproctor.com for a free download of Serenity.
Different people define hard work in different ways. Some think of hard work only in terms of physical exertion; others would consider finding solutions to difficult problems to be hard work. I think of it as anything that requires focused effort and stretches your idea of what is possible—or in other words, that which challenges you.
This challenge can be either physical or mental; often, it’s both. Challenges move you from the comfort of what you know, and they force you to creatively find solutions for the unknown. Challenge is important: It keeps you from becoming complacent and doing what is easiest—rather than what is best. The masses go down the wide road of ‘easy,’ while the few struggle along the path to true wealth. This is partly why, when challenges come, you’ll often feel very alone. Everyone else gives up and runs back to that wide, easy road.
Big challenges are frequently accompanied by big results. The more focused effort it takes to climb your mountain, the greater the feeling of elation when you plant your flag on the summit. When you commit to do what others won’t, you will produce results that they will never know. I once saw an interview with a survivor of a plane crash. He said, “There is no greater elation than the joy you feel after avoiding certain death.” Great challenges can produce similar feelings of accomplishment. The desire and willingness to do what seems too hard for others will give you access to the great treasures of life.
Great challenges require great perseverance. Ask yourself, ‘how many times can I be knocked down and still get up and keep going?’ What’s your limit? When will you call it quits? Have you given yourself a timeline for success? If it doesn’t work, will you go back to what you were doing before? Have you imagined a worst-case scenario that will give you an excuse to not try again?
If you have, then you are giving yourself a reason to fail. You are hedging your bets rather than giving it 100%. And you know what? You’re right—you will fail. You can’t start out with the idea that you’ll try it for a year and let yourself give up. You have to give it everything you have and determine in your own mind there is no going back. If you don’t give yourself the opportunity to quit, then you simply have to move forward.
Perseverance is tied very closely to belief. If you can hold the image of your goal in your mind and focus your energy, you are persisting in that belief and it will happen. This belief creates the self-discipline needed to keep you on task; it will not allow you to falter or become apathetic. Imagine if you decided to lose 30 pounds. Every week, you get on the scale and you see continual progress. That progress fuels the discipline by enhancing the belief that you will reach your goal. It’s the same in the area of wealth: Each small accomplishment provides the energy to rise to the next level. As you climb higher and higher, you can look back and see solid evidence of how far you’ve come. This gives you a huge emotional boost for your efforts.
Chapter 8 REVIEW
• Remove the chaos from your life.
• Learn to say no to the unimportant.
• Reduce multitasking and focus your energies.
• Alternate between action, evaluation and rest.
• Learn to think critically.
• Self-image is a learned assumption of who you are.
• Big challenges are accompanied by big results.