by Roger Seip
Practicing gratitude utilizes what's known in quantum physics as the observer effect. The observer effect essentially means that in a given experiment, a particle will be in a particular place based on whether or not the experimenter expects it to be there. Literally, experimenters affect the outcome of experiments by what they think. In our lives, thoughts of gratitude versus resentment operate much the same way. Have you ever noticed that people who complain a lot usually have a lot to complain about, that bad news begets more bad news? And have you ever noticed that the opposite is true—that good news begets more good news?
Even better, have you ever looked back on a seemingly terrible situation and realized it was actually one of the best things that ever happened to you? My dad was a great example of this. My dad would have been the first to tell you that his spiritual life was nonexistent to weak for most of his life. Earlier I mentioned my family history with colon cancer. In 1999 my dad was diagnosed with colon cancer, and it was far enough along that it was obvious he was going to die from it. The treatment was as bad as the disease in many ways, and over the next few years his body began to just break down. It would have been extremely easy for him to be resentful, but he went the other way. Being deathly ill and scared about it actually caused him to enjoy his life more than he ever thought possible. Shortly before he passed away, I asked him how he was doing with the whole experience.
He said (I'm paraphrasing here) “My body kind of sucks, but I am really grateful for what's happening.”
I was really surprised to hear this, and I said, “Wow, how is that?”
He replied (and now I'm not paraphrasing) “Well, knowing my life will be over soon has done something I didn't expect. You know that I never really could see God in my everyday life. Now I see God everywhere.”
Whoa.
Practicing gratitude—the act of focusing on what you are thankful for—is the single fastest way I know of for changing your physiology, shaping your life positively, and boosting your energy level.
Tips for cultivating an attitude of gratitude:
1. Keep a gratitude journal. We've discussed in a few places how writing things down makes them more real for your mind. Having a gratitude journal where you literally take notes on the things that you are thankful for is an extremely powerful way of training your brain to focus on and attract grateful thoughts and the accompanying results. If you can't or don't want to have an actual journal, you can just set an alarm for yourself every day that triggers you to take a few minutes to focus on anything you're grateful for, large or small. Sounds cheesy, but it works like a miracle for creating an instant energy boost.
2. Do things that you would be grateful for. This is an area where you will very much get back what you put out. When you create gratitude in your world, you will get more of it. A Buddhist might say: “It is impossible to light the path of another without also lighting your own.” Think about the last time you did something nice for someone, even as small as opening a door or returning something you saw them drop. They were obviously thankful for getting the small gift, and then you felt great for giving it! You got the double bonus!
Tool #3: Your Ability to Manage Mental Input Sources
You've heard the brain described as the world's most powerful computer, and in many ways that's true. There's a phrase from the world of computer programming that definitely applies to your brain:
Garbage In = Garbage Out.
A computer can't make judgments about the programming it receives. It just executes the program exactly as it has been instructed. Your subconscious mind is the same. It doesn't question its programming, it just executes powerfully. So if you want to see record-breaking results, you'd better be running a record-breaking program in your mind. Your mind's programming comes from its input sources, of which there are five:
1. What you read
2. What you watch
3. What you listen to
4. The people you surround yourself with
5. Your language
Critical concept: Keep in mind your RAS's default setting. When it comes to your mental input sources, if you are not consciously making them positive and energy-boosting, you are unconsciously allowing them to be negative and energy draining. There is no third option, there is no middle ground. Positive input sources are never, ever an accident.
The following are some examples of being conscious versus unconscious with your input sources.
What You Read
Whether you realize it or not, you are reading things all the time, either consciously or unconsciously. You can consciously read a book, magazine, or newspaper as you're doing right now, which simply means you've made a choice to pick some reading material up and allow it into your brain. Ideally, you're asking the three Smart Reading questions: “Why am I reading this?” “What do I need this information for/what am I looking for?” and “How much time do I have?”. This will always produce a positive result, even if you are just reading for entertainment. The reason is that if nothing else, you strengthen your choosing muscles. If what you're reading is information that impacts your life positively, so much the better.
Unconscious reading usually looks like walking by something (a newspaper, a magazine at the grocery store, a billboard) and reading it in passing. What gets into your brain when you do that? Headlines and advertisements—is either of these really good for you?
What You Watch
According to Nielsen, the average American watches TV 142 hours per month. That's over 4.5 hours per day, every day. This may be the single biggest energy drain that we as a country experience. 4.5 hours a day? Are you kidding me? If that's you—stop it. Let me be very clear on this issue:
If you watch four hours of TV every day, you will not achieve your goals. Period.
Talk to anyone who leads their field, and ask them about TV watching. Many you will find actually do watch television, but very little, and always with a purpose. Many will watch shows that relate to their field, or to keep up on current events, or they will have one show that they watch for entertainment. However they watch, they do it consciously. None of them spends four hours a day vegging in front of a screen—none. It's not actually about the number of hours, it's just that the very act of zoning out in front of the flat screen is an act of unconsciousness. It's impossible to be devoting almost 20 percent of your life to that act and not have massive hemorrhaging of your energy supply.
As we said about your brain, it is biologically attracted to motion. Throw in the knowledge that we think in pictures, and then throw in the idea that the more clear and vivid and emotionalized our mental pictures are the more they stick in your mind. Do you understand now why the messages that come through the TV are so influential? Do you get why corporations spend way over 50 billion dollars annually on TV advertising? Bottom line is that TV affects your brain like a drug, and what you see there will stick. Have you ever noticed how watching a scary movie right before bed will disrupt your sleep? Have you ever fallen asleep in front of the TV and actually dreamed that you were in an infomercial? If it's on, the TV is an extremely powerful influence.
So contrary to where you may think I'm going here, I am not going to tell you to blow up your television, although I know a lot of successful people who will just eliminate TV when they have a major goal. What you really need to do is make a conscious choice about what you watch. There are lots of great things about TV, movies, and Internet videos, as long as you are mindful about what you allow into your mind. I just don't believe you can do that 4.5 hours a day.
What You Listen to
Almost as impactful as what you watch is what you listen to—music, talk radio, sports—are you making a conscious choice about this input source? Again, you can either consciously make this input source energy boosting or unconsciously allow it to be energy draining.
There's a huge opportunity here because:
1. You can actually use this input source while doing other things.
; 2. The sheer amount of knowledge you can gain while exercising, driving, grocery shopping, showering, doing housework, and other otherwise mundane activities is staggering.
The practice of listening to educational audios and consciously chosen inspirational music for at least some of the time in your car and during other activities is one of the absolute most profitable choices you can make. In August 2011, my friend Tom Weber and I both committed that for one month we would not listen to the radio while driving—only audio that we had chosen. Both of us were spending several hours daily in the car, so this was not the easiest challenge. What happened was astounding. Tom immediately had by far the highest sales productivity our company had ever seen and has maintained that new level. For me, the results were slightly delayed, but in October and November of that year I shattered our company's longstanding monthly and quarterly sales record. Worth it?
So shut off the radio for a little while, and make a more positive choice. For a list of our all-time favorite listening material, check the “Reinforcement and Bonus” section at the end of this chapter.
The People You Surround Yourself with
Maybe your most profound input source is the people you spend your time with. In my speeches, I'll usually find someone who has teenage kids and ask them:
“If your teenager were going out, what would be the first two questions you'd ask?”
Without fail, if it isn't the first question it's the second: “Who are you going with?” Parents want to know this, because they instinctively know that their kid will become like the kids they hang out with, at least for a while. They also know that if they hang out with a certain crowd long enough, they become like that permanently. Finally, they know that this influence can either work for a kid or against them, but it is always working.
Guess what—that peer group influence is happening to you right now. You are becoming like the kids you hang out with. If they are bringing you up, wonderful! If not, perhaps a change is in order. Brian Tracy says that “the selection of a negative peer group, all by itself can completely ruin a career.” Want a good indicator of your income five years from now? Look at the income of your five best friends currently. Don't misunderstand—I'm not saying you should ditch all your poor friends. I'm saying that you must be conscious of the influence your friends have on your life, and make adjustments if necessary. You can't change the result of a negative input source; you can only change the source itself.
Your Language
The last mental input source we'll discuss here is your language—how you speak. There are a couple of aspects to your language.
One is your self-talk. Are you aware that your mind is always talking to you? Twenty-four hours a day, you are always talking to yourself. If you monitor that conversation, you'll notice that unless you are being mindful of it, that conversation will have a profoundly negative, doubtful, fearful tone. I sound like a broken record, but if you don't consciously make your self-talk positive and energy-boosting, it will be negative and energy-draining.
The second is the questions you ask, specifically when dealing with problems. I have found that in life there are winners and losers. When confronted with adversity, losers will tend think in generalities, and they tend to ask why.
“Why did this happen to me?”
“Why are people so mean?”
“Why don't I ever get the breaks?”
Winners on the other hand will tend to think in specifics, and they tend to ask how. As in “how can I fix this?”
“How can I avoid this in the future?”
“How can I learn from this experience?”
Different questions will bring different answers. You must avoid the mind's tendency to be generally negative. Instead, cultivate the habit of being specifically positive.
Here are some tips for more effectively managing your input sources:
1. Cultivate the habit of reading a book on personal development for 30 minutes a day. 60 is better, 15 is mandatory for breaking records.
2. Shut off your TV for a week, and watch the miracles that happen.
3. Take the challenge to listen to personal development audios in your car instead of the radio for a month. At least try it for a week.
4. Take inventory of the influence your personal associations are having. Do you need more of some people? Less of others? Notice this and act accordingly.
5. Read the book What to Say When You Talk to Yourself, by Dr. Shad Helmstetter. It's where I personally learned the science and the practice of verbal affirmations. The year I read it, I tripled my income and had way more fun.
Tool #4: Your Ability to Decide Your Focus
Your focus literally creates your reality. We've already discussed this in a bunch of ways in this book; I've quoted Covey, “All things are created twice.” We've talked a little bit about the power of visualization and the law of attraction. A few pages ago, you learned about the observer effect—how even on a quantum level, the focus we have actually creates experiment results.
And I'm certainly not the first one to make this assertion. From Napoleon Hill to Earl Nightingale to Thomas Edison to Albert Einstein to the father of modern-day American psychology, William James, all the great minds have understood and asserted that what we focus our mind on literally gets created. Same thing with our energy, and the focus or creation link is often instantaneous. When you shift your focus from “what's wrong” to “what's right,” you change your energy and vibration immediately.
Fortunately for us humans, our focus is under our control. The single biggest thing that makes us human is the ability to choose what we pay attention to. Animals do not have this ability. Yes, our minds have some pretty destructive tendencies. If left untended in this society, your mind will likely lead you places you really don't want to be and it will keep you stuck there. But we are not slaves to our tendencies—we can decide differently. And we can do it on a moment-by-moment basis.
Tips for strengthening this tool:
1. Go back to the entire section on energizing goals and really do those exercises. Fundamentally, there's no better or more powerful way to enhance your focus and train your brain to keep its attention on your goals.
2. Really do the Two-Hour Solution. I know these aren't fancy tips, but this is where the rubber meets the road.
Tool #5: Your Ability to Take Action
Ultimately it's action that directly creates your results. If you always do what you've always done, you'll always get what you've always gotten.
One of the thinking models we teach in our workshops is called Be, Do, Have. This is how your life essentially unfolds. Your character and your thinking (the Be), creates and guides your actions (the Do), which then creates your results (the Have). There are many wonderful understandings and quotes that stem from this model—it could probably be the subject of an entire book itself. Train Your Brain is all about how to make your life better soon, so for now, understand that:
While the Be influences the Do, the Do also influences the Be.
Your thinking impacts your actions, and your actions also impact your thoughts. Ever noticed how getting up and walking around boosts your energy? Ever noticed how when you smile at someone, you feel better? Or how cleaning out your car actually makes you more energetic? It's often easier to impact your energy by starting with the Do-ing. It's usually easier to act your way to healthy thinking than it is to think your way to healthy acting.
So get into action!
Here are some specific action steps proven to boost energy:
1. Smile, even if you don't feel like it. It does several things to your brain that boost performance and mood.
2. Take any form of physical exercise. The connection between a healthy body and a healthy mind couldn't be clearer. Even just a 15-minute walk or a dozen push-ups can really clear your mind and provide a great energy boost.
3. Do something nice for someone else. We covered this under practicing gratitude.
4. Take
charge of your environment. Clean the garage, straighten your room, get a haircut, get the car washed, anything to improve the state of your environment.
Tim Ferriss, author of the monster bestseller The 4-Hour Body, put it this way. When he was asked about how a person could “improve their inner game” his instant reply was “improve your outer game.” It's true that real, lasting change comes from the inside out. Often, however, we can impact the inside through improving the outside. Do, Be, Do, Have.
Chapter 17 will teach you how to create your own Power Hour, a specific daily energy management practice that allows you to implement all of these tools. You'll learn how to create an undefeated mentality in a way that's simple, extremely productive, and fun.
Reinforcement and Bonuses: This chapter has been Memory Optimized™ for your benefit. For your brief lesson and some great bonuses, visit www.planetfreedom.com/trainyourbrain with the access code in the About the Author section. Enjoy!
Chapter 17
The Power Hour: Your Daily Energy Management Practice
Before we get into this chapter, I want to congratulate you on getting this far in Train Your Brain For Success. Statistics show that something like 90 percent of personal development books that get bought do not get finished, and you're almost there! I know there's a feeling of relief and accomplishment when you finish something important. You feel like you've gained a victory!
That's what this final chapter is all about—how to predictably create that feeling of victory every day. When you develop a habitual pattern of victory, you go a long way toward being completely unstoppable.