Inertia

Inertia… the tendency of something unmoving to remain unmoving.

Inertia is a scientific (physics) term… but metaphorically it applies to our psychology as well.   In other words,  when we have a habit of being sedentary, we tend to stay sedentary…  and to change to an active lifestyle requires a big effort in the beginning.

Sad to say… but over the past 4 years I’ve become more sedentary than at any time in my life previously.   The process of launching and growing my online business served as a convenient excuse for spending hours and hours in front of a computer screen.   Gradually I spent more and more time in my apartment… less and less time outdoors.

Maybe it was necessary… though probably not.    Regardless,  this year I realized that I was spending most of the hours of my day sitting on my ass…. staring at screens (computer, DVDs…).

I decided to change that.

And… because I know the power of inertia,… I knew that small gradual actions would likely fail.    I knew that I needed MASSIVE action.

And that’s how the Shikoku hiking trip was born.  I was sitting in a coffee shop, thinking about my sedentary life…  and the idea to do an outdoor challenge came to my mind.  I remembered the Shikoku 88 Temples route.. and immediately decided to hike the whole 650 mile route–  not next year, but in just a few months.

What’s more, I also know that there’s a danger that I’ll finish that big hike and immediately relax back into a more lazy life.  And so, I have decided to do a bicycle tour of northern Italy in the Spring.   And after that?   Probably a 1-2 month hiking trip in Patagonia.

What I’m doing is trying to build momentum.  Because the second part of the “law” of inertia is that objects in motion tend to stay in motion.   In other words,… once we do establish a vibrant, active lifestyle… we tend to keep it.

Put another way… it takes a lot of energy to change… but once you make the change… it takes much less effort to sustain it.

So my strategy is to be SUPER-active for the next 12 months…  stacking one tough, physical, outdoor challenge on top of another… until an extremely high level of activity and energy becomes my normal default lifestyle.

This is the best way to transform your life… in any area:  business, finance, relationships, health, fitness, etc..

If you are in a rut…  and have been for a long time… then small steps probably won’t be enough to break your old pattern.  You probably need some powerful, massive actions…  BIG massive changes at the beginning.

Once you break the old pattern,… and establish a new one… it’ll take much less effort to keep it

Good luck to you… whatever you hope to achieve.

Just get out there and live my friends!!  

The Real World

…

The beauty and tranquility of the old-growth forests, the vistas that stretch for miles over unbroken treetops, the waterfalls and rivers, the severance from the noise and electronic hallucinations of modern existence, becomes, if you stay out long enough, a balm to wounds. It is in solitude, contemplation and a connection with nature that we transcend the frenzied and desperate existence imposed upon us by the distortions of a commodity culture.  –Chris Hedges

One of the reasons for my upcoming hike around the island of Shikoku is stated in the above quote:  “severance from the noise and electronic hallucinations of modern existence”.

It is amazing to me that the vast majority of people seem to live their whole lives lost in the “electronic hallucinations of modern existence”.  In other words, they live their whole lives focused on the bullshit presented by TV, radio, movies, etc…   They believe that this electronic hallucination of human society is the sum total of “life” and “the world”.    They live according to the programming presented to them.

Most modern people are asleep.. hypnotized by media.

Luckily, there is a cure..  a sure way to wake up…  and Chris Hedges points it out:  Nature.    There is a reason that saints and holy people throughout human existence have left human society… and gone into the wilderness.   They needed to escape the bullshit of human conditioning and get to the essentials of life and existence.

When you go into nature, the bullshit and programming and fake drama quickly fade away.  You quickly gain a wider and wiser perspective on both your own life, and on human society as a whole.   Your mind clears.

Nature is healing.   Compared to it, human society is insignificant.  It’s important to remember that..  because you are bombarded every day with manufactured dramas to entertain and distract you.   To be sane and healthy and whole, you must unplug.

Unplug from the TV.  Unplug from movies.  Unplug from music.  Unplug from newspapers and magazines.  Unplug from books.  Unplug from the internet.

Return to the direct experience of your life, now.

The best way to do that is to put on a backpack, and walk into the mountains.  Or the desert.  Or the forest.  Or sail into the ocean.

That’s where you’ll discover what is real, what is essential… and who you really are.

4 Results In Advance Strategies

In a previous post, I promised to discuss the vital topic of promotions re: your new micro web business.

This area is probably the most neglected aspect of most people’s micro web businesses.   A lot of people seem to think that just having a cool website is enough.  It’s not.

Hobopoet is the perfect example.  Why does Hobopoet get almost no traffic, but my English teaching site gets tons of traffic?  The main difference is promotion.  I promote my English site like crazy.  I have never done any kind of promotion for Hobopoet… and so it toils away in obscurity (sniff…   

So, once you have a simple blog website… and a product/service that ads real value and eases the pain or frustration of a group of people… how do you get people to your site and how do you get them to try your wonderful solution to their problem?

Here are some strategies:

1. Social Media

Advantages:  Free   Disadvantages:  Slow and Tricky

The cheapest way to promote your web business is through social media, especially Facebook.   I recommend a triangle of sites:  Your Blog/Site,  Facebook, and Twitter.

With Facebook, first signup for a personal account.  Then create a business Fan Page.  Fan Pages have no limit to the number of  friends (“fans”) they can have.

The tricky part of social media is how to use it.   Here’s a very important suggestion:  NEVER sell anything on your social media sites.   Perry Belcher gives great advice when he says, “Think of Facebook as a barbecue party, not a sales pitch”.   Facebook is basically an online scrapbook.  So…  add photos to your page (trickle them in one by one… only one a day).   Make little videos for your Facebook page in which you discuss your daily life.  Be friendly and fun, just as you would at a barbecue party at your home.   Facebook is about showing people that you are a real person, not some kind of business automaton.

As for Twitter, think of it as a cocktail party (another Perry Belcher suggestion).  Your goal at Twitter is to provide little charming, interesting, or useful nuggets… with links to something more in-depth.  Again, absolutely NO SELLING.   Just link to cool articles, or funny videos, or your Facebook photos.

So, how does all this help your micro web business?  Well….    sometimes you will write a really cool and useful article on your blog/site… and you will link to it from Facebook and Twitter.  Below this article, you will have an email signup form, so if people like the article they can signup to receive more great information from you     You can do the same thing with videos.

2. Results In Advance Videos

The central strategy in all my promotions is what Frank Kern calls “Results In Advance”.  To my mind, this is the most honest and open way to promote your website (and also the most powerful).

In a Results In Advance promotion, you do just what that suggests… you deliver some of your best content & solutions for free.  You give it away.  For example, on my Effortless English site, I constantly give away great audio and video lessons, and also motivational videos and articles.

You must have an abundance mentality to do this.

Why is this effective?  Well, you don’t need to do a lot of selling or BS.  You just say, here’s a great solution to your problem that I’m going to give you for free.  Enjoy it!  Later, you give them another great solution to their problem, for free.    Because you are doing something valuable, you gain people’s trust and gratitude– by being a great person who is helping them.

One easy way to do this is to make a series of FAQ videos.  In each video, you answer one of the frequently asked questions about their problem and you give a short and easy solution.

Then you offer your full and complete package with even more great solutions… and many people are happy to buy it because they already know you and trust you.

You didn’t trick them into trust… you earned it by giving them Results In Advance!

3. Adwords

Google adwords sucks… let me say that up front.  Google has complete and utter contempt for their advertisers… so you must be careful when starting an adwords campaign.

That said, this is also the fastest and easiest way to get traffic to your site.   Before you start a campaign, read lots of books about Adwords.

And then… VERY IMPORTANT… start with a TINY daily budget.  I recommend $1 a day.

Send people from your ad to a page where they can sign up for your free video or email course  (your Results In Advance course).

Then wait a while and see–  are you making more from sales than you are spending on adwords?  If yes, increase your daily budget to $2 a day.  If no,  adjust your ads, adjust your email signup page.

At $2 a day you wait again, until you are sure you are making more from sales than you are spending.  Then you increase your daily budget to $3 day.

You get the idea.   Increase your daily budget slowly and gradually…  and NEVER lose money on adwords.  If you start losing money, immediately pause all ads….  change your ads or email signup page or results in advance campaign… drop your budget low again… and start again.

4. Learn From The Masters

Keith Cunningham says, “Your business will never grow faster than your learning”.   If you want financial freedom, you must learn.  I recommend that you study the best. You can do this for free.  On Twitter, follow people like Frank Kern, John Reece, Brendon Burchard, Tony Robbins, and Perry Belcher.  Notice how they are using Twitter for their business.   Watch their Results In Advance videos.  Read their Results In Advance reports.  You’ll learn a lot just from their great free content (without ever buying anything from them).    Also, get on their email lists… and again notice how they promote their own businesses with Results In Advance campaigns.

By using these strategies, you can build a successful micro web business.  And when you combine that with a simple life with reduced expenses… you will very quickly attain financial freedom.

The above is the exact approach I will take with my good friend Todd’s web business.   By living in Thailand (especially small town Thailand), he has already massively reduced his living expenses (but still enjoying an amazing quality of life).

Next, he will start blogging and making videos to chronicle his progress as he builds his bungalows.  We’ll get him on Facebook and Twitter too… to start building an audience.

When I get to Thailand in December, he and I will then make a product that is valuable and which solves some kind of pain (related to Thai language, or traveling in Thailand,…).

Then we’ll follow the above strategies– and give away some of his best content.

Finally we’ll sell his full package of great solutions to very happy and eager people.

And through this process, Todd will gain financial freedom… and the ability to live and travel as he wants, whenever he wants.

He’ll do it by living his dream and by contributing to people and helping them with a painful or frustrating problem.

You can do this too!

Koh Phayam Awaits

Todd is flying to Thailand, and eventually Koh Phayam, tonight.  We said goodbye to him at the airport.  You can watch the little video we just made at the airport:  watch here.

What’s really cool about all of this is that we will document another Hobopoet success story in real time.  My old archives (http://hobopoet.blogspot.com) and this site already provide the fully documented process of my path to freedom and self-reliance  (from wage slave, to car and van living, to living abroad in Thailand, do scraping by in San Francisco, to micro-preneur, to successful and free entrepreneur).

Now we’re documenting Todd’s path to freedom…  starting now as he flies off to Thailand… and continuing as he builds his bungalows, builds his web presence, and fulfills his dream of living a free, simple, healthy, and happy life on tropical Koh Phayam island in Thailand.

The reason this blog excites me is that YOU can see what’s possible… not in theory but in reality.  You get to see the whole process… with all the bumps and warts and challenges…. and the victories.  I want you to see that freedom, self-reliance, simplicity, and happiness are possible… without following the mainstream programmed path.

So I hope you’ll follow Todd’s adventures in Thailand, both here at Hobopoet and on his new blog.

And I hope you’ll see that my essays and exhortations are not just grand ideas and theories…  but hard-nosed reality-based blueprints for anyone to follow.

Most of all, I hope you’ll find your own path to freedom and abundance!

Good luck to you too!

Car Living and Communication

Car living seems a very relevant topic right now, so I’m going to re-visit some of my advice on this topic.

The first thing I want to discuss is communication.   To thrive, and not just survive, while car living- it’s necessary to stay connected.  Each person will have to decide what this means exactly, but here are some thoughts on the general topic of connection and communication while car living:

Car Living & Mail

Mail is, in fact, a very important subject- because our evil government demands a mailing address at almost every turn.   In order to get or keep a drivers license, for example, you must have a mailing address.  The same goes for a bank account should you want one.  And also for getting a cell phone and various other services you may want.

The first and best choice is to use a friend or family member’s mailing address– and only receive vital mail there.   All bills you have should be paid online…  eliminate paper billing and paper statements as much as possible.

Second choice is to get a post office box– though some services and agencies will not ship to a post office box (UPS for example– and certain government agencies).   However, for most purposes, a  post office box will work fine.. either one through the post office or a private post office box through UPS (they will ship to their own store

Car Living & Phone

If you can afford it, a cheap cell phone is by far the best option.   It’s mobile and convenient and a very basic plan is fairly cheap.    If you’ve got the money, an iPhone gives you a lot of options– get the unlimited data plan and then you effectively have a small computer as well as a phone– perfect for paying bills, and emailing out of country friends.

A very cheap option is to get the most basic, cheap plan possible…  and add on unlimited text messaging.  Then use text messaging instead of calling to communicate with friends, arrange meetings, etc.

Car Living & Computers/Internet

The internet is another great communication option for car-living hobopoets.  Internet access is free at most libraries.  If you can’t afford a phone or phone service, use email to connect with friends and others.   You can also blog as a creative outlet.

Of course, if you can afford your own laptop, your options increase.  With a laptop and a little money, you can take advantage of free wireless at many coffee shops.   Spend hours working or playing online, writing, and reading–  all for the price of a coffee.   In San Francisco, many entrepreneurs run surprisingly lucrative and successful businesses from coffee shops and laptops.   They even have a name for these folks:  neo-bedouins.

Imagine, for example, running a tiny jewelry business while car-living.   Make your jewelry in your van or at a park.   Create a website to sell it.   Market the jewelry through a blog, podcast, newsletter, etc.   Receive orders & payments online through PayPal… then ship them out–  all run from a laptop and a wireless connection at a coffee shop (it might even be cheaper to get a monthly wireless service through a cell phone company)!   You wouldn’t need to sell much in order to support such a lifestyle.

Car Living & a Fun Social Life

Car living can be fun because you have so much free time.   There’s a lot you can do with that time– without spending money.   Sports and outdoor activities are some of the best.   Play soccer.  Play ultimate frisbee.  Play softball.   Do yoga at the park.   Free local groups can be found in almost every community.

As you may know, I’m particularly fond of disc golf– it’s a great way to meet people, it’s fun, and it’s free.  Find a course near you at:  www.pdga.com

Music is another great free pursuit that can be social.   The simplest thing is to get a small super-cheap hand drum.   Drum circles can be found all over– and beginners are usually welcome.  This is fun and a great way to meet people and enjoy life.   Of course, guitars and various other portable instruments are also great fun.

Join Clubs While Car Living

Look on meetup.com to find local groups to participate in.   Also look on bulletin boards at coffee shops and colleges…  and look in the newspaper.   Fill your evenings with interesting clubs and hobbies.

See Speakers While Car Living

Speakers are another great way to learn and enjoy your free time.   Some may charge a fee, but many interesting speakers can be heard for free.   Look for announcements from colleges and libraries to find speakers.

As you can see, it’s possible to have a very rich social life while living in a car or van.  It’s also possible to stay in touch with friends and family.  In fact, you may find that your social life expands tremendously– because suddenly you’ll have a lot more free time.  Take advantage of it and enjoy it!

Car Living A Vital Skill

This year, the topics discussed on Hobopoet have taken a deadly serious turn.   We are at the beginning of a huge economic disaster–   the same kind of bankster engineered disaster that Argentina experienced.

Because of this, the collapse of American Empire is accelerating.  While Obama and the banks loot the country and enslave it’s citizens with massive debt, the media continues to show idiotic stories about “the coming recovery”.   The corporate media also loves to fawn over Obama.. while purposely hiding what is actually happening.

Why is this important?  Because practically, it means very tough times ahead–  “The Greatest Depression” as many economist are calling it.  In fact, we are nowhere near the bottom… the worst is yet to come and it’s going to be much worse.  We’ll see another huge stock market crash, massive unemployment… and then the killer–  massive price inflation.  In other words, the value of your cash savings, if you have them, will be eroded or destroyed–  just when you are either losing your job or starting a new one with much less pay.

Such is the bankster economic system… a system that Naomi Klein calls “Disaster Capitalism”.  First the banksters & their government partners engineer (or take advantage of) a disaster.  Then, while regular people are dazed and confused and pliable, they swiftly enact new laws that enrich the banksters while looting the confused and clueless public.  They did it in Argentina and many other places.. now they’re doing it to the United States.

In fact, it’s already done.   So the practical question becomes–  how to survive the unfolding disaster?

This is where Hobopoet skills become important.   As hobopoets, we choose to live simply but happily.

The difference between a miserable homeless person and a happy Hobopoet is planning, preparation, and mindset.

Being thrown into homelessness (and unemployment) is traumatic… but carefully planning and choosing it can be quite fun.   As my old archives note, its possible to live very happily and comfortably even in a Nissan Sentra.  To do so, you must be intelligent:

• Modify the car for living:  Take out the back seats and create a bed from the back area all the way into the trunk (extend your legs into the trunk area when sleeping).   Tint all back windows as dark as possible (and put cardboard behind the tinting).  Run a shower or curtain rod just behind the front seats, and hang a black blanket or sheet over it (to block rear area from sight).  Use plastic storage bins for clothes and food.  Use a camp toilet… or a gatorade bottle (for peeing– women can get a funnel to make this easier and doubled freezer bags (for emergency shitting).   Park in stealthy areas– such as big apartment complexes or public streets with  other cars around…  or best of all- at a friends house.
• Create a micro-business:   Create a business that is tiny and easy to run from anywhere.  You might sell art or jewelry at music festivals.  You might create a small online company.   You might sell information products.  Just create an independent small income source.. to lessen or eliminate your dependence on jobs.
• Collect Quality Camping Gear Now:  A quality sleeping bag and sleeping pad is vital if you will car-live in a cold climate.  A camp stove is also useful.. as is a set of compact cooking gear.    Consider quality (non-cotton) clothes for cold weather.   A hiking water filter is also useful (for filtering water from rivers, streams, or public sinks).   A tent is also great if you plan to be in rural or wilderness areas sometimes (or campsites).   An LED headlamp is extremely useful at night.
• Think about Cleanliness:  How will you clean yourself?   You could join a gym and use the showers there (if the membership will be affordable).   You can sponge bathe in public bathrooms (use lockable bathrooms and ALWAYS thoroughly clean up any water– so they’ll never suspect you are bathing in their bathroom!).   In hot weather, you can bathe in a stream or river (as I did in Athens, Georgia).
• Consider Safety:   Take a combat self-defense course or study one at home now (I recommend www.attackproof.com ).   You might consider keeping pepper spray in your car….  and possibly a knife or gun (but only if you REALLY know how to use them and are well trained.. otherwise stick to pepper spray and self-defense training).   Another safety issue:  identify safe and fairly “stealth” parking areas in your town.  If possible, secure a parking place in a friends’ driveway.

Those are the basics.   As I read more about tent cities popping up, and people losing their homes,.. and the economic disaster still to come…  I feel that car-living and voluntary homelessness topics are more important than ever.

Therefore, I’ll be re-visiting these topics in the coming months–  to provide detailed practical strategies for people to THRIVE (not just survive) even if they lose their home, job, etc.

Car Living is one such strategy– as long as you can still afford to insure and maintain a car.  If that’s possible, I believe that car-living is the best choice for those who have no other home.  Tent living (or open air camping) would be a distant second choice,.. as it’s less secure.. but I’ll discuss homelessness strategies as well.

I believe that everyone should think about and plan for this… even if you feel you are financially secure.   Planning for the possibility of car-living or homelessness will give you tremendous confidence and strength if you are indeed forced out of your home.  You won’t fear it so much and won’t panic if you already have a plan and have already prepared!

Now For Some Hedonism

It’s been a hard-working month of vacation here in Bangkok… culminating in yesterdays 5 hour seminar– which rocked!  I had a fantastic time and thoroughly destroyed my voice (singing teacher won’t like that– gotta learn how to speak powerfully without killing the voice)!

Now it’s time for some well-deserved hedonism!  Tomoe arrives tonight, and the rest of the SF gang arrives later this week.

Then it’s down to Koh Payam for a birthday party on the beach, and some diving!  I’ll also be getting in a nice long run there.  It’ll be nice to finally run somewhere that isn’t choked in smog.   Next week’s long run will clock in at 2 hours.

In fact, the running paid off beautifully yesterday at the seminar– giving me the fuel I needed to go all out for 5 straight hours (with no lunch).   This is, after all, the reason we “exercise”:  health = energy.

Our sick (literally) culture equates health with longevity only–  it’s something you do so you can squeeze out a few more years when you are old and tired.. that’s the message we are sent.  We’re also sent the message that health is difficult and inconvenient… or even “weird”  (thus the term “health nut”).

In my mind, sedentary, tired, overweight people are “nuts”.  Why destroy your happiness, vitality, and most of all– ENERGY?

I’m happy to report that my Mom, after a lifetime of being obese, has finally gotten the message (in large part thanks to a Tony Robbins seminar we attended).   She’s become a vegetarian, is exercising everyday, sucks down “green vegetable drinks”, and drinks lots of water.   During my whole lifetime, I have never seen her so focused.

I think she’s finally understanding that the benefits of health occur RIGHT NOW.  Once you taste that sustained energy and peak mental state, you never want to go back to lethargy!

And so, my hedonism on the beach will include plenty of running, swimming, diving, and soccer playing!

I Want You To Suffer

Why do I, at times, seem to gloat about my wonderfully free and happy life?

Why?

Because I want you to suffer.   I want you to read about my wonderful life and feel like shit.  I want you to feel absolutely miserable when you compare your horrible job, boring routine, and shitty compromises to my passionate, fun, exciting adventures.

There it is– naked and honest:  My Motivation.

And why do I want you to feel massive pain?  Because I want to goad you into an emotional crisis (see previous post)–  I want to push you, suddenly or slowly, past an emotional threshold.

I want you to become so angry, so sad, so upset… that you finally say, “Enough! No Fucking More! I Will Never Live Like This Again!”

Because I know if you are comfortable and numb, you’ll do nothing.  I know that if your life is “OK”, you’ll do nothing.   Lukewarm “OK” lives suck!   Because what they really are are bored, frustrated, failed lives.

Pain can be your ticket to the most extraordinary life you ever imagined–  if you focus on all of the pain caused by your failure to act, your failure to go for it, your fear of failing–  if you focus on that pain and amplify it and wallow in it, and hold on to it and strengthen it every day.

That is your ticket to the freedom you have always dreamed of.   Read my previous post… and then put yourself through the Dickens process everyday.   As a ritual, examine the part of your life you know you must change– to be passionate, alive, and totally fulfilled.    See and feel all the pain caused by not doing what you must do.  Feel it physically (I hunch my shoulders and tighten everything and create so much tension and misery in my body that I gag and almost vomit)– and link that physical pain to your current situation.

Feel the pain.   Suffer horribly.  Every day until you reach your limit and scream, “Enough!  No More!”

Then do what you must do.  Reclaim your life.

I’ll see you on the other side of that pain–  to celebrate your freedom!

An Instant

Change can happen in an instant.   You finally reach a threshold and you say, “Enough.  No Fucking More!”  Do it with your whole body, mind, and spirit…  and everything changes after that.

It happened to me just over two years ago.    I was working a “good” job– where I had a great deal of freedom.  For a year and a half, everything went well.  But then the inevitable bullshit crept in.  My boss started catching heat from the Korean management of our school…  who pushed him to regiment things more.. to “take more control”.

A growing list of bullshit rules followed.  I became more and more frustrated– yet another job going down the tubes.  Finally, one day after another horrible meeting, I hit my threshold.   Years of frustration poured out. I came home and went berserk… I yelled, and I said, “Fucking Enough!  No fucking more!”.

That’s when I decided to start my own business. It took 9 more months of experimenting, working, etc…  but that next summer I had my Independence Day– I quit the last job I would every have!  It was one of the best experiences of my life– I still feel giddy when I think about it.

But it was made possible by pain.  Massive frustration and pain.

Because I had an advantage over most bored & suffering workers–  I didn’t push the boredom and frustration away– I wallowed in it.  I amplified it.   I put myself into a state where the pain and boredom finally became unbearable-  so unbearable that I HAD TO act.

Too many people do the opposite.  They are not excited, fulfilled, and passionate about their job…  (or any job).   But they MINIMIZE the pain of that.   They minimize the boredom.  They make excuses.  They distract themselves.   They think about other things.  They tell themselves easy lies such as, “This is just life.  This is normal.  It’s too late to change.”

They avoid, minimize, and numb the pain–  and so they never take action.  They never reach that emotional and physical threshold..  As a result, they waste their entire lives doing something that does not fulfill them at the deepest level.  This is what Thoreau was talking about when he wrote, “The mass of men live lives of quiet desperation.”

But it can change– everything– in an instant…  if you just build and amplify the pain until you hit your threshold.

Two months ago, my mother did this.  After 40+ years of lethargy and obesity and depression, she changed in an instant!

What happened?  She finally felt all of the pain.  She did an exercise at a seminar called “The Dickens Process”.  In this exercise, you focus on all of the pain that your action (or lack of action) has caused you in the past.   You don’t just focus on it… you use your body to actually FEEL it.  Then you amplify those feelings of emotional and physical pain.  (When I did it, I nearly vomited!).

After going through this extremely painful process focused on past consequences, you do it again while focusing on the present– all the ways your action (or lack of) is currently destroying you and your life.  Then you do this whole process again… imagining the increasingly horrible consequences and pain your action (or lack of) will cause 1, 5, 10, and 20 years from now.. if you continue.

It’s a gut-wrenching, very uncomfortable process– but it’s damn powerful.  Because for the first time, many people fully feel the total pain they are creating in their life.  They stop minimizing it.  They stop ignoring it.  They stop making excuses.. and they feel it all… the totality of failure, futility, ugliness, lies, boredom, frustration…….

My Mom hit her threshold during this exercise.  She finally felt all the pain caused by her lethargy and obesity and she said, “No Fucking More”.

Since that time, 2 months ago, she has:

• been a vegetarian
• eaten organic & green
• drank green veggie drinks every day
• exercised 4-7 times a week
• lost 42 pounds
• eliminated depression
• inspired my entire family

No one in my family ever thought my Mom would do it.  After 40+ years of excuses, everyone had given up on my Mom (because she had given up on herself).

But she changed it all in an instant– by purposely pushing herself to an emotional threshold and beyond.

The point is this:  Stop avoiding the pain–  do the opposite.  Whatever bullshit you have accepted in your life… stop making excuses for it.  Stop pretending its OK.   Focus on the pain it’s causing, has caused, and will cause.   Amplify that pain… feel it in your body… and do this every damn day until you reach your own emotional threshold. Increase the pain until you can’t take it anymore and shout, “No Fucking More!”

Physiology & Emotion

Like most people, I have big dreams and grand goals.  And like most people, I have found that my emotions are usually the biggest obstacles to reaching those dreams.

It’s easy to focus on outside forces.  It’s easy to blame the outside world for our failure to live according to our highest principles… for our highest dreams.

But the deep truth is that we are our main enemy.  Specifically, it is our lack of emotional mastery that sabotages our highest aspirations.

What prevented me from starting my own business for so many years, for example?

I told myself it was lack of money, lack of experience, etc.  But the obstacles were fear and doubt.

I couldn’t manage my fear.   I focused on my doubts.

Eventually, I reached an emotional threshhold and learned how to master my emotions.  After that, everything unfolded almost effortlessly.

Of course, it wasn’t effortless…  but it felt effortless because the negative emotions had drained away– such that work no longer felt like work, effort felt like play.

So this is a very serious subject– emotional mastery.   We absolutely must learn to master our emotional states, or we will forever be slaves.

But how?

I’ve found that the easiest way to master my emotional states is by mastering my physiology.  In other words, the body gives us a fast and easy means of instantly altering any debilitating emotion.

Depression, for example, requires a certain physiology.   I have found it almost impossible to feel severely depressed while simultaneously holding my shoulders back, my chin up, my eyes wide open.  To that I add a huge fake grin.  After a minute or more of holding my body in this way, the emotion of depression lessens considerably or disappears altogether.   I’m then in a much more resourceful state to actually deal with my problems, rather than wallow in self-pity.

Exercise is another well-known way to alter physiology, and thus emotion.  In fact, sedentary friends and family are often confused about my addiction to exercise.  They think I’m obsessed with being thin and fit.  I like those benefits, but to be totally honest– I’m most deeply addicted to the emotional lift that exercise gives me:   greater optimism, greater emotional energy, euphoria, etc….

Lately, I’ve been much more conscious of mastering my emotions.  I’ve learned some methods from Tony Robbins’ seminars.  I’ve read a lot on this subject and have been experimenting with myself.

So now, every day, I consciously trigger empowering emotions– and condition them more deeply.  I consciously put myself in an energized, grateful, happy emotional state.   First and foremost, I do this by changing my posture–  as I sit, as I walk, as I go about my day.  I keep my shoulders back, my chest up, my eyes open.

I also remain conscious of my breathing–  being sure to take long deep breaths from the gut throughout the day.

It seems too simple, doesn’t it?   And yet, the emotional transformation has been outstanding.   My daily emotional experience is far more positive.  As a result, I’m far more energized and motivated…. and as a result of that, my actions are more congruent with my highest principles, dreams, and aspirations.

I therefore encourage you to experiment with this.  Focus on your own physiology for 30 days.   Be constantly aware of your posture, facial expressions, and breathing.  Specifically:

• Keep your shoulders back and chest up (especially when feeling bad)
• Keep your eyes up and open
• Keep your chin up (literally)
• Take deep breaths from the gut
• Exercise aerobically (walk, jump, run, swim, whatever…

Do this for 30 days, and then notice the transformation in your EMOTIONAL PATTERNS.  I know you’ll find a very positive change.

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