It has taken a lot of time for me to specifically stomp down the trails that allowed me to learn communication techniques for the different people in my life. The hardest person I have ever tried to master my intellectual sparring with, believe it or not, is…me.
Let me set the stage for the rest of this chapter. Inside of your mind there are two versions of you. They are simply Positive You and Negative You. One of them needs positivity and value based input. While the other requires negativity and fear to survive. Imagine them with me, the day you were born there were two newborns in your mind. At five years old there were two separate five year olds in your mind. By the time you were 18 there are two fully developed conscious beings standing side by side in your mind. They constantly are listening to you and then giving you feedback. One of them stands in the lime light of your thoughts and one of them looms in the shadows. One has absorbed absolutely every positive thought you have had, book you have read or encouragement you have received, and now gives those thoughts to you. The other has absorbed the scoldings, the fear, the negativity and gives that back ten fold.
If we asked ten different people which version stands in the light based on what I wrote in the preceding paragraph, the assumption would be the Positive You stands in the light while the Negative You cowards in the shadows. Unfortunately, if that was your guess more often than not, you would be wrong. For most people, the light in their mind is directed towards negativity, albeit masterfully masked inside of “what is best for you.”
From the time most small children are old enough to understand, they would be told to conform to what has long ago been established as how children ought to act and be parented. For most of us it was a generationally repeated rhetoric that wasn’t necessarily the best advice. Instead we received a regurgitated parenting style echoed from our grandparents through our parents and into us. The exact same things that were said to them for “their own good” are now being given to young people as good sound parenting advice:
That will never work.
Better to be safe than to be sorry.
Be quiet, sit down.
You’re too young to understand.
Hush.
Don’t make me tell you again.
Stop that.
How many times have I told you not to do these stupid things?
As you read these eight common phrases spoken to children, the thing that you should notice about all of them is that they have a negative connotation. Remember, the light version of you can’t absorb this content? Your parents inadvertently fed the Negative One within you. Even worse, some of us were threatened physically, emotionally beat down, and abused. Every negative input acting like a steroid shot to the darker version of you. More often than not, if you could see into the minds of the average eighteen year old kid you would see a visible difference between the size and confidence of the Negative One living inside of them. By the time these same young people are thirty or thirty five the positive version is nearly gone altogether. Most people don’t even realize how broken they are due to their own thinking.
Grandpa had a different approach. Listen to how he would communicate with me, saying a variation of the above negative sentences:
When you try that, what do you think will happen?
You will never know unless you try.
Lad, act more level headed.
Walk with your eyes open, Savvy?
I want to hear what you think about this, when it’s your time to talk.
Lad, remember why that wasn’t the best choice?>
Take it easy.
Did you notice that there is not a number eight? That is because I don’t remember a time ever that I was attacked directly. All influence stemmed from a loving, positive place. He spoke without games, without negotiations, and without negativity. Instead he spoke with compassion and an understanding of his audience: a young, shattered boy who had lost his father and his best friend. My grandpa just loved me.
Take the analogy simply as the way I am describing it. I am not suggesting that these people are bad or that the negative inner person represents evil. I am simply saying that a lifetime of comments like the following have drowned out many hopes and dreams:
Rich people are greedy.
Rich people have figured out a way to add value to the world.
Money is the root of all evil.
Money is a measurement for the value you give the world.
Have not want not.
You can accomplish anything you put your mind to.
You will never be rich.
What are you passionate about?
Money doesn’t grow on trees.
If you want that, we should create a plan for you to save up enough money.
We can’t afford it.
This is something we will have to save up to purchase.
We will never have that.
You can have anything you want if you are willing to work for it.
We could never afford that.
Everyday we are working to better ourselves. That is something that I am excited to be able to buy.
I’m spending a considerable amount of time showing you how most people’s minds are programmed. Even if they were given a million dollars they would squander it quickly. Because the necessary version of their inner person hasn’t been fed, it hasn’t been worked out. In fact for most, it hasn’t been relied on in a really long time.
Many people are now masked with a “this is the hand I was dealt” mentality. Even though they look happy, they just aren’t. Numerous good people are conditioned like dogs, to sit, to stay, and some sadly enough to even beg.
You see there is a competitive edge when you understand the way the mind works. You have the opportunity to control everything in your world, and it all starts with eyes and ears. It is time to filter what you allow into your world. This has to happen in conjunction with the mechanics of obtaining wealth. Your mind will need to be sharpened, and the positive version of you needs to be fed. It needs to be exercised. It needs to be challenged. It has to be stronger than ever. You simultaneously and intentionally have to beat down the negative you. Being an entrepreneur is not fun and games. It is hard work. It will test your commitment and your stamina. The positive you will have to be stronger than it has ever been, and it will need a very clear picture of your why seared into it’s minds-eye.
As you begin to exercise the control you have internally, everything that enters your mind will have to be filtered through this question, “Is this a positive or a negative input?” If it is a negative and you have the ability to avoid or delete it, you absolutely should. If it is positive, don’t just let it slip through. Take time to truly absorb it. Positive input needs to be savored.
Now the hard part, in the beginning of this practice when you originate thoughts you have to remember, there are two voices fighting for the microphone. It will not always be easy, but you must remain consistent. You have to be willing to not allow the negative to speak into your world. In time that version will become starved for attention. It will get weaker as you mindfully condition yourself to not allow it a voice in your mind any longer. Before you know it, your life will absolutely shift. You will see a new level of abundance. Positivity will drive your workouts, your goals, your days, your months, and your entire life. People will likely recognize a new version of you. That is when the fun truly begins. Savvy?
Let Them Work For You
As I have grown older I realize that the things that made me the most money were legal and typically involve not doing the same things everyone else does. Like I had mentioned previously, Grandpa had said to me, “Lad, you have to learn to walk with your eyes open, savvy?!” I learned to recognize the patterns of commerce. I watch the masses to see which way they are moving. I have learned to make it a habit to look the opposite way and see what they are missing or leaving unattended.
Countless people wake up every day, drink their coffee, eat their breakfast and head off to w
ork. They do this over and over and over again. Never stopping to ask themselves, “What if ten or fifteen people woke up everyday and came to work for me?” What will your life look like when you decide to leverage the talents of others for your cause? Just think of the potential impact you could make on society.
You might be thinking I couldn’t do that; I don’t know what I am doing. Maybe you are thinking, “Man I wish I would have went to/ or completed college! Then I would know exactly how to change my life.” There is nothing magical about the piece of paper you receive at the end of four years of university. You simply need to commit to the process of incremental adjustments daily that will improve your life over time.
The truth is that I shudder every time a young person tells me they are going to college unsure of what they want to do on the other side of that decision. I want to rip them from the mold that they are being shoved through. Instead I want to show them that if they would have faith in their gifts and walk with their eyes open, that soon they would be in the elite three percent. Unfortunately, its not my place to stop them. The few times I have had one of those conversations with younger people about college, their parents are pretty quick to encourage them to “do the right thing.” The safe thing is promoted by the parents. The smart thing is what most parents desire for their children. Parents encourage their children to go spend $100,000 on a degree that the teenagers are unsure of what the heck they plan to do as a career goal.
I suggest that everyone read Robert Kiyosaki’s book, Rich Dad Poor Dad. Robert does a great job of describing the difference between the small percentage of our society that constitutes the rich versus the masses of our population. The difference between the ones that use money and the ones who are trapped by it. Savvy?
$100,000
Journey To What?
College can be a great life path. I especially believe this if you know what you want to do, where you want to go, and have the support system to ensure that you stay between the lines. If you go to college because that is the next step, then I have a better idea. Jump on Instagram find me, @michaelmunsterman. I will sell you practical real business advice for the same $100,000! Obviously I am joking, well sort of.
What does college have to do with what I’m talking about? Let me explain. I have two daughters, one of them is 25 and the youngest is a 18 year old senior in high school. My oldest daughter went to college and graduated in a little over 3 years. She recognized that in order for college to make sense she needed to get through it as quickly as possible. She knew that she would need to get a degree in something that she could leverage in the marketplace. My oldest daughter chose accounting, and now she handles the finances of our different companies. She is extremely accomplished and continues to impress me every single day! Could she have got to the same place without a degree? I’m not sure, maybe. What I can tell you is that her experience has added a much needed implementation viewpoint to offset my visionary perspective.
My youngest daughter has showed interest in several different fields but is currently feeling called to be a speach pathologist. She has decided that if she is going to spend four to six years in college, she expects to be compensated accordingly. What I love about her logic is this; she isn’t going to college to get paid. Her first concern is the value and impact that she can add to the world. However, she is grounded enough to recognize that a $200,000 piece of paper should equate to a much larger multiple for her efforts. Having graduated with an unweighted 4.0 GPA she was able to secure a full-ride scholorship to the university of her choice. Her path allows for vast employment opportunities as well as entrepreneurial ventures in a field that will never run out of need. Whether we pay for their degrees or not, I expect my girls to understand the expense of institutional education.
College has it's place. So many graduates exit university with a plethora of new skills that better enable them for the grueling "Real world." If you are going to send your children to university or go back to school yourself make sure there is a very specific and clear plan of use for that education.
If you are going to step out of the “Rat Race”, as Robert Kiyosaki calls it in Rich Dad Poor Dad, then you will have to learn to rise above the years of forced conformity and remember who you are at your core. You are a brilliant gifted human being who is currently somewhere in the middle of your one chance to crush this life. Break the mold and go for it! Regardless of what “it” is in your life.
If you can begin to recognize the patterns of conformity then you will begin to organically reject them. You will stop accepting the matrix that we have all been placed. Remember in the movie, “The Matrix”, Morpheus gives Neo the choice to take the blue pill and be returned back to his life, agreeing to accept everything the way he understood it prior to being told the truth. However, the red pill is described as the solution for knowing the real truth in life. He tells Neo that he can advance into the “rabbit hole” or in other words, continue to learn about the lies that were set in the world in order to break them and obtain freedom.
You will begin to see that the world is your oyster. Your ability to live the very best version of the life of you is there for the taking. Savvy?
I’m Not Your Voice
Earlier in the book I talked about physicality, and working through physicality not simply for the vanity of physicality, but rather to strengthen who you are as an individual person. To strengthen that voice that supports and gives encouragement, that voice that speaks up when you’re traveling down the right path, or when it’s time to pick a different course of action. That small voice that, when you were little, screamed inside of your head so loud, “This is what we want, this is what we’re going to accomplish, this is where we’re going to go,” and you just listened to it. You must become childlike again and trust that voice inside of you.
Through years of being told no, being oppressed, being pushed backwards and getting pushed back that voice has taken some terrible setbacks. When you would make comments like, “When I grow up I wanna be rich,” that voice got weaker and weaker and weaker. You began to listen to the negative voice in your head, the one that says things like, “You can’t do that. That will never work. What will so-and-so think? How will you ever show your face at the golf course after you do that? What will Mom think? What will Dad think? What will my brothers and sisters think? What will my wife think? What will my kids think? You’re gonna be so embarrassed when you fail.” That negative voice inside of you has been allowed to grow and echo inside of your head. You have given that voice so much power throughout the course of your life. You have given that voice the ability to speak into and alter your course. Thereby the negativity has altered your reality and prevented your reality from positively impacting others to its maximum capacity.
Hopefully, as you’ve progressed through this book you’ve seen that I have been able to overcome that voice. In my story on the other side of tragedy, a lack of physicality, on the other side of lots of hurdles and obstacles in my lifetime, I’ve figured out how to strengthen that positive voice that said, “We can do this.” I put myself in front of the appropriate mentors that reinforced the positivity in my head. I surrounded myself with guys that would challenge me if what I was saying didn’t align with my goals. They had the power and the wisdom to out loud speak life into my world. These mentors would reinforce that spoken word with positivity. They taught me that if I wanted to excel, I not only had to strengthen that voice, but I also had to listen to it.
It starts small. It’s the voice that, at 5 A.M., says, “It is time to get up.” Recognizing that it’s the negative voice that you’ve been listening to for the last decade of your life that says, “Five more minutes, hit snooze.” Listen to the voice that will enhance your success.
It’s the voice that says, “One more round, one more rep, push a little bit harder.” I get it you have been yo-yoing back and forth. You’ve been listening to the voice that says, “Oh, we’re tired, let’s just stop.” Quiet they negati
ve voice in your head.
It’s the voice that says, “You’re not quite done with your day. Thirty more minutes, and you’ll get accomplish everything that you set out to accomplish today.” Regrettably, you’ve been listening to the voice that says, “My favorite TV show comes on tonight, it’s time to go right now.” That negative voice will get quieter as you begin to ignore it.
It’s the voice that says, “Before you turn on the TV, talk to your spouse about their day. Ask your kids what their day was like.” Unsuccessfully, you have been listening to the voice that says, “I’ll do that later.” Shut down the voice that is causing strain on your most important relationships.
You have given so much power to the negative voice in your head that most days you barely hear the stronger, positive voice. Consequently, through working out and challenging yourself physically, you have an opportunity to strengthen that voice. Every single day you get to set a bar in front of it that allows you to blast through and strengthen that voice. When the alarm goes off and it’s time to get up, your decision to follow that voice’s prompting gives it strength inside of you. Every time you follow the prompting of the positive voice in your mind, you strengthen it.
Your decision to get up, your decision to grind just a little bit harder, your decision to make those calls that you don’t wanna make at work, your decision to call those leads, reach out to that prospect, do the marketing, all of the things that you need to succeed are being whispered inside of your head. You just have to make the decision to listen, and every single time that you do it gets a little bit stronger. That is one more repetition, that’s one more reinforcing action to the positive prompting in your mind. Soon that voice will drown out the negative voice to a small whisper.
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