ADVANCE CONFIDENTLY!
“Only one who devotes himself to a cause with his whole strength and soul can be a true master. For this reason, mastery demands all of a person.” ~Albert Einstein
Everything begins with our thoughts. All things are created twice, first in thought, then in action. Wherever you are right now, look around you. Whatever objects you see, first existed in the mind of their creator, and only became manifest when acted upon with human hands. Even many of the natural objects surrounding us had to be gathered and placed by human hands to create their significance.
Our lives are no different than the objects surrounding us. Look at your life. The way it currently looks is most likely a result of your thoughts about what you believed was possible for you. Our lives are a representation of our thoughts. Our thoughts determine how we respond to external events and stressors. Whatever we currently have, or don’t, is most likely related to whatever we believed was possible for us. Please remember, there are always exceptions, but our hardiness or resilience equation, which also ties back to our thoughts, will directly impact our outcomes.
There is a phrase, expressed with some subtle variations, that was made well known by Earl Nightingale and other early pioneers in the field of personal growth and development. It also has strong spiritual ties. The phrase, in one form or another, can be found in many spiritual texts as well.
We become what we think about. “A man is what he thinks about all day long.” “Whatever your mind can conceive and believe, it can achieve.” “As a man thinketh, so is he.” “A man is but the product of his thoughts. What he thinks, he becomes.” The phrases above are attributed to: Emerson, Hill, Allen, and Gandhi.
“We become what we think about.” ~Earl Nightingale
What made this short phrase so powerfully popular was the context in which it was shared by Nightingale. When Earl Nightingale wrote and recorded TheStrangest Secretin 1956, it sold over one million copies and received the first Gold Record for the spoken word. His work was responsible for launching and creating the field of business motivation and audio publishing.
https://youtu.be/lV_8Uyu4OwU (The Strangest Secret — A Clip)
Earl Nightingale is the only man I have ever known to use more quotes than me… And trust me, that’s saying something!
The following quotes are from the opening of The Strangest Secret.
“A man’s life is what his thoughts make of it.” ~Marcus Aurelius
Disraeli said, “Everything comes if a man will only wait. I have brought myself by long meditation to the conviction that a human being, with a settled purpose, must accomplish it, and that nothing can resist a will that will stake even existence on it.”
“The greatest discovery of my generation is that human beings can alter their lives by altering their attitudes of mind.” ~William James
“Our doubts are traitors and make us lose the good we oft might win by fearing to attempt.” ~William Shakespeare
“George Bernard Shaw said, “People are always blaming their circumstances for what they are. I don’t believe in circumstances. The people who get on in this world are the people who get up and look for the circumstances they want and if they can’t find them, make them.”
AWARENESS
“The first step toward change is awareness. The second step is acceptance.” ~Nathaniel Branden
Our thoughts are constantly taking us into the future or revisiting the past. Unfortunately, this is where many of us spend much of our time. We are either thinking about the future or dwelling on the past. The future is kept for us. Impossible to go into debt, as was outlined in one of the greatest pieces ever written on time, by Arnold Bennett.
To be aware is to be in the now. Eckhart Tolle has made an entire career around this concept. The now is where we connect with our higher self. The now is the place where we exhibit our essence. The now is a place of being, not doing. When we are aware, we can see ourselves and our actions from the third position, which is the position of observer. It is from this place of observation that we learn we are not our thoughts, and with this awareness comes the realization that if we are not our thoughts, then we can change them in any moment. It is this awareness that opens the door of enlightenment.
Meditation has been called a direct route that will give us access to pure awareness, or to our higher self. It is the place that allows us to experience the space between the space, the silence between the silence, the pause between the pause, the breath between the breath. From this place of awareness, a door of infinite possibilities awaits. This door often swings on the hinges of gratitude, because “Gratitude is the little hinge that swings big doors” as was shared in the book, Dear Gratitude, by my friend and fellow author, Chris Palmore.
If you think your life is too busy for meditation, then that’s the first indicator you might just need meditation more than you could have ever possibly imagined… Fortunately, there’s a movement created by my friend and Executive Coach, Michael O’Brien, called the Pause, Breathe, Reflect, movement and you can experience meditation in 2-, 3-, 5-, or 10-minute segments on either Clubhouse or Insight Timer, your choice.
Clubhouse: https://www.clubhouse.com/club/pause-breathe-reflec
Insight Timer: https://insig.ht/qBQlNvHR0ib
Meditation really is all about our breath. It’s about the awareness of our breath. When we breathe with purpose and intention, we open the door…
CHOICE
“Choices are the hinges of destiny.” ~Pythagoras
We are always at choice. Our choices create the life we live. The energy of the ego resonates at a lower vibration. The energy of compassion, forgiveness, gratitude, and truth resonate at a higher level than the ego. Another word for choice is discernment and you will find it often used when discussing mindfulness. It literally means to choose wisely.
Discernment is all about conscious choice and we often find books written on habit change discussing this idea of choice. When we ask the question, “What would my inner coach, or higher self, do?”, we are asking a discernment question.
TRUTH
“It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye. ~Antoine de Saint-Exupery
This element is all about being honest with ourselves. It may be best represented by the Delphic maxim of “Know Thyself.” Truth is the place where we create the courage to act on the conscious choices we have made because choice without action is folly.
Waiting in the shadows, our ego will attempt to distract us from living out and speaking our truth. The closer we come to our breakthrough while on our personal growth QUEST, the stealthier the ego will be about derailing us from our desired outcome. Self-mastery is the first step to the banishment of our ego and the birth of potential enlightenment. The ego will do everything to preserve itself.
When we can stand in our truth and take up the space of that truth, our ego begins to realize its days are numbered. This is where we typically meet with resistance, which is another tool of the ego to keep us playing safe and small.
SELF
“One can have no smaller or greater mastery than mastery of oneself.” ~Leonardo da Vinci
When we finally overcome the resistance of our ego, we will have an opportunity to meet our true self for perhaps the very first time. When we come into alignment with our true self, we will no longer feel at odds with the difficulty of choice, because our actions will finally be in synch with the natural laws of the universe. This is the place where we realize the difference between being in the world, but not necessarily of it…
Ego will have been put in its rightful place and awareness will be in the driver’s seat, at least temporarily. Ego is a persistent adversary and absolutely despises the back seat of the car and will do everything to regain its position. If it can’t regain position, it will quickly call “shotgun” at the earliest opportunity and push awareness into the back seat to take its place.
(A note on the term “shotgun” for anyone wondering. According to Wiktionary, the front passenger seat in a vehicle, next to the driver is referred to as the “shotgun” position because the position of the shotgun armed guard on a horse-drawn stagecoach, wagon train, or gold transport was next to the driver on a forward-mounted bench seat).
Self-mastery is available to all of us, but only if we are willing to walk through the trials and tribulations of self-discovery. The QUEST of self-discovery is not for the weary or faint of heart. It will most likely require us at a minimum, to do battle with at least one dragon, and we will most assuredly be forced to enter the cave we fear.
“The cave you fear to enter holds the treasure you seek.” ~Joseph Campbell
If you are wondering what awaits in the cave, here are a few of the elusive prizes we are all looking for: Happiness, Joy, Bliss, Wholeness, Oneness, Consciousness of the brightest and purest form, and an Awareness that transcendsthe bonds of everyday life and the presence of Light, Love, Truth, and Prosperity. Oh, and let’s not forget my favorite, Equanimity! This is the place of our unfulfilled destiny now realized. This is facing difficulties and excitement with equal anticipation. This is the NOW!
For us mere mortals, energy is rarely sustainable at this level. However, wouldn’t it be nice to visit it at will? That is the power of self-awareness. That is the power of self-mastery. That is the power of mindfulness. These are the ACTS! The potential prizes listed above generally emerge as we embrace the ACTS of Mastery. Act NOW!
Advance Confidently is the title of my next book, you will have to wait to celebrate its release as I celebrate my 60th birthday. I have concluded the world doesn’t need another self-help book from me right now, so I am listening to my muse and writing a sci fi personal growth story of self-discovery instead. Hmmm? Almost sounds like a QUEST, right? I believe you will be INSPIRED with the story that chose me to write it! I never saw it coming but now that it’s here, I can’t wait to share it with all of YOU! I know it will be worth the wait because that’s my commitment to you, my readers. Thanks in advance for your trust and patience!
In the meantime, I released a special audio short story on Twitter to commemorate my Independence Day and my 31st year of sobriety. You can watch/listen to the story here ( https://youtu.be/9zP4kk5OTlo ). You can find me on Twitter @bobby_kountz
Keep Pedaling, Keep Going, Keep Growing!
Advance Confidently!
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In Gratitude,
Bobby Kountz, Author, Speaker, Mentor, Sobriety Scholar, Inspirationalist!
PS. You can find out more about me here. You can find my book on Amazon.
