This past weekend was amazing. I had a two distinct moments of enlightenment that I will spend days/months/years understanding and imbibing. Before I go into them (one in today’s blog and one in tomorrows) I would like to give a quick background of the place/training that set the environment for these epiphanies.
Many of the people, who know me, know that I went through The Great Life Foundation (GLF) about 7/8 years ago. Then about 4/5 years ago, I went through their Founders Training. I was so inspired by both (Founders in particular) that since then I have been on the Founders Board.
Their core trainings unlocked a part of me that I had kept trapped in side since childhood; my emotions, my love for people, my passion and vision, my musical talents and over all it gave me the invitation to live a great life instead of buying into the comfortable complacency that I was mainlining from the masses.
Founders training kicked it up a notch. As I went through Founders I tapped into my vision and how to live it daily, I tapped into my skills and I also found a fire burning inside of me that was strong enough to fuel my desire to attain that which I wanted in my life.
I could go on for hours about the Great Life Foundation’s core trainings and Founders but I would like to discuss the epiphanies I recently had. On that note, one of the best parts about GLF and Founders is staffing. Staffing is an excellent opportunity to gain even more perspective and notice/practice on a deeper level each time. That is what happened these past few days.
Epiphany number 1 – “Seeking Balance” vs. “Being in Balance”:
For the past 10 years (post punk rock, violence and keggers) I have sought balance in my life and I can honestly say I have attained it many times. In fact I have been on an internal cycle of attaining balance and then subconsciously destroying it. I am so clock work in doing this that my wife and I have pinned it down to a 6 month time line… build balance, obtain it and destroy it at the end of the cycle.
Pause that thought for a moment, I will come back to it. Last week as I was staffing Founders, I spoke to a friend of mine, Randy Young, and expressed my belief that it is futile for people to try and destroy their beliefs or even take them head on. I have seen many attempt to destroy them, especially once they found books/movies like ‘The Secret’ or have gone through trainings like GLF.
I shared with Randy how I believe our beliefs are ingrained in us to the point where we aren’t even aware and to continually try and destroy them is a life sentence of chipping away at the top of Everest while thinking we are on a small rock.
In the book Blink Malcolm Gladwell describes the story of how Symphonies used to be comprised of men (except for the occasional female harp player) because everyone believed that men where fundamentally better at playing classical music. If anyone where ever to deem this as sexist, the response would be that; because each symphony held tryouts for their positions and men won every time, there was no way it could be prejudice.
That was until one try out, where, because a son of one of the panel judges was auditioning, they put up a curtain (so the judges could not see who was playing). Of course, a female won the audition and all of the judges where in shock. Since then, auditions have been held using curtains and over and over again women have been accepted to play in the symphonies.
The reason I share this story is to show my point about beliefs. No mater how many times someone told these judges that they had beliefs about women which were affecting their results, they couldn’t see it. Even if they were to be open to the possibility that they were being prejudice, they would still hear the men as better.
No mater how many times someone wants to destroy a belief, it is still there. So instead of chipping at the mountain, why not put up external curtains or build situations that force the individual to look at things in a different way and/or do things in different ways.
Even in extreme situations (like experiential trainings such as GLF and Founders) I have seen many (including myself) walk with my beliefs out, trying to destroy my beliefs, with out realizing that I was acting out the belief I was attempting to destroy. Every time I do this I find myself frustrated and saying something like this; “are we doomed to keep learning the same lesson, over and over, just in new and different ways”.
My answer is Yes and No. Yes if we try and change/destroy our beliefs. No if we consciously choose to let exterior forces, such as a curtain, into our lives to force us into a new belief, a new experience, a new way of looking at things. Then we have the opportunity to glimpse and maybe even imbibe a new belief, one that might eventually replace the old belief that we wanted to destroy. This is just like in Malcolm’s story; the curtain is now used across the world and the belief about men being better is no longer held.
Founders CAN be a curtain. Here is why, it is something that you won’t experience in your day to day, by nature (because there is a facilitator) there is the opportunity to relinquish my actions/decisions to an exterior force (facilitator, staff, experience, etc). How ever, one must choose into putting beliefs aside and giving the parameters of the experience to an external force (facilitator, staff, etc). So how do I see this applying to my life? Here is an example:
Here is one belief I am constantly attempting to change; my belief about creating a successful business. I have spent a lot of time on this one; schooling, reading, trainings, building, researching, etc. I have had some miner successes and I have had a TON of movement… movement that is not producing the home run that I seek.
In fact, I have gotten so good at moving that I constantly fly through new business ideas and opportunities only to end up with the same level of success. I have been well aware that I have beliefs that are getting in my way of a home run and I have spent many hours trying to change/destroy these beliefs.
I have done this using my beliefs about business (often disguising them as “practicing new ways of doing it”) and using the parameters that I set up. Because of this, I have continuously created the same levels of success.
Some exercises:
How to do it different? Here are some exercises I am going to practice to externalize my parameters and there for make room to experience/see other opportunities that can then create new beliefs:
I am going to find a people that I admire, whose beliefs are creating results that I seek. I am going to enroll them into telling me what to do. First, I am going to explain to them my current business situations, and then I am going to set it up so each week they tell me one thing to do. This thing can be anything and I don’t get to adjust it, go around it or half ace it.
Yes there are some catches with this, like they could tell me to give them 10 grand or light a building on fire. My solution to this is to find someone who is willing to do this with me, who will in turn, let me tell them something to do the next week (go back and forth). This way if I give them 10 grand they give it back, etc. (I have all ready found one person to do this)
Another exercise at externalizing results is to consciously set up situations with handicaps (like being blinded by a curtain, like in Malcolm’s story) for example; this week I am going to create a business using none of the people I currently know. Doing this would force me out of my beliefs about the people I currently work with, it will also challenge me to create new behavior patterns to find new people.
Okay, to tie this together with balance. When I was talking to Randy about all of this, he said “I believe in seeking balance not being in balance. If I am in balance then everything is a stand still to maintain the current balance. If I am seeking balance I am pushing, pulling, changing and tweaking to create balance”. This statement smacked my face
What if the 6 month cycle I have, isn’t just my old lifestyle resurfacing, as if it where a curse (which is what I have started to believe). What if it is my subconscious’s way of shaking things up because I have hit balance and are no longer moving? And doing it in such a dramatic way, that it forces me to do things different, step into new situations, put up new curtains, etc. (sloppy and inefficient… but affective)
Testing the lesson:
So here is how I am going to test my theory. I am going to constantly find ways to put myself in new situations, with one arm tied behind my back, while actively choosing into other people’s ways of doing things. If my theory is correct, then I will be constantly creating new experiences and therefore creating new beliefs and new results.
Then, if this works on a subconscious level, I will also stop my 6 month cycle because I will all ready be shaking things up, putting up new curtains and doing things different and will no longer need the smack in the face from my subconscious.
A current small example of this is my 30 days of awesomeness. I shook things up, I tied my hands behind my back (no stimulants) and I have seen things in a different way (you are reading the result)! I have staffed before with out creating new ways of doing things or new perceptions. I have the thought that the reason I saw and experienced this was because of my 30 days of awesomeness. And on that note:
Checking in:
Tomorrow I will share my other lesson that I received this past weekend. Keep on Keepin on!
TheMrRogers 