What Box?^®

Just suppose you were living life exactly the way you have imagined you want it to be. What does that look like? Are you traveling around the world? Are you swimming with dolphins? Where are you living? What kind of car are you driving? How are you helping the world? Are you taking time to just be? Are you creating that piece of art you have always wanted to create? What kind of career do you have? How are you spending your leisure time?

If you are already living your life exactly the way you have imagined it, congratulations. You are among the select few in the world who have achieved such bliss in life. For the rest of us who continue to dream about a life still not fully achieved there is hope. For each new day has the potential of opening new doors of possibilities. The key is to stay optimistic even through the dark times, the times when our path to living the life we know is possible is shadowed by the daily challenges of living.

It is easy to gain enthusiasm for a dream in the short term. It is a very different thing to remain enthusiastic for that dream through the passing of time. Creating and living the life you want and imagine takes time and hard work. Very few things worth obtaining in life are easy to achieve. This is why so many people fall short, giving up and settling for what is instead of what can be. Don’t let this happen to you. You have too much to give back.

When you stay optimistic you are able to see the doors of possibility opening up in front of you. You are able to go through these doors and explore the possibility to see if this new opportunity supports you to live the life you have imagined and are supposed to live. You will start to see your continued perseverance begin to pay off. Each day you make choices that either support your drive to live the life you dream of, or work to hold you back from living that life. We all need to be vigilant to keep the daily stuff that fills our lives from taking over and limiting our ability to see new opportunities.

Just living in today’s “super human” environment is enough to drag anyone down. When you let skepticism and pessimism take over your state of being, you derail your efforts to living the life you have imagined. I have met many people who have let the challenges of living take over and suppress them from becoming what they know they can become. They have given up and, worst of all, in many cases only complained about their situations as if they had nothing to do with it. They did and you do too.

Suppose for example, that you are making only the best choices for your life from this point forward. What choices will you make? Who will you choose to hang out with? Who will you choose not to hang out with? What health choices will you make? What will you choose for your life?

I suppose life is a journey of ups and downs, highs and lows. It is how we choose to respond to these highs and lows and ups and downs that allow us to appreciate the highs that much more. Sometimes this may mean taking a day as a do over or just going to bed, looking forward to tomorrow and a new day. When you are able to focus on the positive even during the times when your path to living the life you know is possible is shadowed by the daily challenges of living, you are on your way to making the most out of your life and the life of those around you.

Let me know what you think.

Dear Sean,
Your article last week, “What’s on Your Mind?” has been on my mind all week. Please say more about the steps I can use to focus and use more of my mind.
Very Interested

Dear Very Interested,
One of my favorite ways to tap into the strong abilities of my mind is to doodle or draw out my thinking visually on a piece of paper. I literally have created over a hundred sketch books of my thoughts. These maps of the mind support maximize learning, innovation, and creativity while at the same time using both the right and left sides of the brain. Another great way to expand the minds ability to think comes from your ability to use creative visualization, your imagination, to create what you want in your life. This is the art of using mental imagery and affirmation to create positive change in your life. Whatever you can imagine you can create. Focus and believe that what you imagine is true and will happen to you. Maybe not overnight and how you expect it, but over time it can and will come true.
Keep on keeping on,
Sean

Until next week, remember the only boxes that exist are the ones you create yourself.

How often do you think about what a phenomenal gift your mind is? Just how phenomenal is it? Your mind thinks and moves energy at the speed of light. Not impressed? Think about it just for a second. Your mind moves energy and ideas at the speed of light. Still not impressed? Let’s put it in perspective. In one second, moving at the speed of light you can travel around the world seven and a half times. Now that’s impressive! What’s even more impressive is that your mind thinks and moves energy at that same speed.

Like computers we only use about 10% of the capacity of our brain. Some of us might push the envelope and use 15% but that is about it. Think of the unlimited potential we are letting sit idle. It is time to stop the brain drain and start using more of our minds abilities. Each of us has over 1,000,000,000,000 (one trillion) brain cells and a virtual Niagara Falls of bio-chemical information flowing through it.

Yet what do we fill our minds with? In so many cases we fill it with junk. We worry about things that never happen. We over think everything, one of my personal favorites. We think about what we are going to eat. We think about issues of money. We think about trivial facts that don’t do much for us at all. We think about the tasks we have ahead of us or worse all the things we needed to do but did not get done, which leads us to start stressing out. The list of things we pre-occupy our minds with goes on and on and on and on . . .

In so many cases we don’t even know we are doing this because it is such a natural part of our daily, weekly, monthly and yearly thinking activities. When you take the time to slow down, calm the mind, and relax, this is when you can begin to take a look at what your mind is doing. Only then can you start to understand how much of your brain power is being used up by things that really don’t matter and in many cases are a detriment to your mental and physical health.

Like so many things written about and discussed in What Box? this is not easy stuff. If it were easy everyone would be using more of their minds potential. I have been working on improving my ability to use more of brain consciously for over 15 years now and I am still a long ways away from getting to where I know I can. The key is to keep on keeping on. Persevere no matter how difficult and you will find yourself becoming more aware of what you are thinking about, what you put into your mind and how you use your mind.

When you program your mind with junk you create junk in your life. If you think you can, you can, if you think you can’t, you can’t. It is a universal law. This is a small example of how powerful your mind is.

Now you may say, “All right Sean, I am interested in taking a look at what is on my mind. How do I do this?”

One of the first and most important ways is to find a place of silence. I have found nature to be the greatest place to quiet the mind. It is a place to find the inner peace that will allow you see what your mind is doing. Breath slowly, become conscious of what you are thinking about. Let your thoughts flow without judgment. After a while begin to think about what you are thinking about. How does it make you feel? Are they positive thoughts? Are they negative thoughts? Are they thoughts that have nothing do with anything and are a total waste of your brain power? Or are they productive thoughts? Thoughts about how to create positive change in your life? Are they thoughts about supporting a better life for yourself and others? Are they thoughts about looking at yourself and how to improve who you are?

The goal is to focus your mind on the productive and positive thoughts. These kinds of thoughts will produce the productive and positive results you desire in your life. It may not happen in a week, it may not happen in a year. It will happen. Behind every overnight success is 20 years of hard work, persistence and positive, productive thinking.

One thing is for sure. The more you practice seeing what is on your mind and using your minds pathways for productive and positive thought the more efficient your thinking will become and the more positivity will be created in your life. Give it a try. It is never too late to start becoming more aware of yourself. When you do, a whole new world will open to you, a world of unlimited potential and wonder. Go for it. What are you waiting for?

Let me know what you think.

Dear Sean
Last week you wrote an affirmation in your column. I do not understand what an affirmation is. Will you please explain?
A Little Confused

Dear Confused,
I apologize for any confusion. More than one person has asked me this question. An affirmation is a positive statement, usually said in the first person about something you want to create in your life. Last weeks affirmation is one of my favorites. I like to say it out loud declaring my conviction to each word sending it out into the universe. Affirmations are like prayers they are a way of communicating to ones higher self. They support you to achieve what you most desire on a subconscious and conscious level. When a person believes completely in the stated affirmation the situation is almost sure to be achieved. If you decide to make use of affirmations in your life, be prepared for change. And remember one of the great lessons in life. Be careful what you ask for, because with affirmations they can manifest themselves very quickly.
Keep On Keeping On,
Sean

Until next week, remember the only boxes that exist are the ones you create.

In today’s world the perception of scarcity is strong and we tend to hold onto what we have with great tenacity. Some people put their stuff in safes, build fences, fill storage lockers full of unused stuff, while others spend loads of money on alarm systems to increase their feeling of security. Even countries around the world continue to go to the extreme of building huge cement walls to protect their stuff.

In business companies spend billions of dollars each year protecting their ideas, products, and brands. Pharmaceutical corporations are scouring the globe looking for medicines from the roots of plants to the DNA of insects and animals to cure our ills. They go to the most remote villages on the planet to learn from the natives on how to create medicines that can cure our illnesses, wisdom that has been passed on through the generations. These tribal shamans are more than willing to share their timeless knowledge so that others may be healed. Once shared and with the wisdom and know how secured, big corporations turn around and patent it so that others can’t share in it or own it. Even worse these corporations don’t share the monetary rewards generated from this wisdom with the people who gave away their intellectual property.

Some individuals and businesses are starting to realize that holding onto things – ideas, methods, and brands – is an illusion that isn’t sustainable. They are realizing that when you give away elements of value you end up gaining more in return. True selflessness and altruism is rare today. Everyone seems to expect something in return for whatever it is they give away. I believe and have experienced in my life, “You reap what you sow.” The more I give away the more I receive.

This is not a new idea. In fact it is more of a universal truth. Yet, why is it that people seem to believe so strongly that what they own, their ideas, or talents are so valuable that they can’t share them with others? Is it because the “idea of giving it away” and actually “doing it” is not so easy? Society has pounded into our heads that when you have an idea or talent you need to protect it. Don’t let it out, someone might steal it. This kind of thinking limits our ability to come up with new ideas because people believe that “idea” is the one and only and they don’t know if they will be able to come up with another one.

If our founding fathers had this kind of limited thinking I am not sure if we would be where we are today. Benjamin Franklin was always sharing his ideas freely through weekly meetings, the Farmers Almanac and other public speaking engagements. Thomas Jefferson was known for sharing his ideas without abandon. The list of founding fathers willing to share their unique ideas are paramount to what we have become as a nation. What has happened to this willingness to share and to give away for the betterment of others? Why do we put ourselves first and others second?

In my line of work if I am not coming up with new creative and innovative ideas on a regular basis I would be out of business. I regularly instill the following thinking with clients who say, “That is a great idea I don’t know how you are going to top that one.” I respond with, “Hey, you like that one, wait ’til we really get cooking. There are hundred more better ones yet to be discovered.” This always blows their minds. Why? Because they think that great ideas are difficult to harvest and that when they find a good one they better hold onto it with all their might. This is a symptom of a scarcity mentality.

Nolan Bushnell founder of Atari and Chuckie Cheeses Pizza, along with a good friend and mentor of mine, says, “There are no new ideas and it is impossible to protect the ideas you have. Just one modification and it is a different idea.” I tend to believe this line of thinking. The whole idea of protecting an idea is very strange and very Western. Leonardo Da Vinci envisioned and drew concepts of helicopter flight 500 years before it became reality. The idea of visiting the moon was something people envisioned hundreds of years before we landed on it. Napoleon developed canned food to feed his troops as they traveled around the world. This method later became the process for creating champagne. Nothing is new only an innovation of what has been.

Give it away I say. The more you give away the more you get. The more you give away the more your life reaches its fullest potential. The more you give away the more you will support people to reach their full potential. The more you give away the more you will create positive energy in your life. The more you give away the more you will naturally align with the flow of life. The more you give away the more you will enjoy all that is. The more you give away the more meaning you will create in your life.

Give it away today!

In the end you have to make the decision of giving it away or holding on to it.

What will you choose?

Let me know what you think.

Dear Sean,
My wife loves to shop – I think she’s compulsive. She spends more money than we make and I can’t work any harder than I already do. What can I do to get her to mend her ways?
Going Broke in Locust Grove

Dear Going Broke,
It is difficult not to spend money on things in our consumer driven society. You and your wife are not alone in this challenge. I suggest that you sit down one night together and go over your finances and share with each other your income verses expenses. Make an agreement only to spend money on the essentials for a month and see how much money you save. Agree to shop for specific things. It is the impulse shopping that gets me every time. Then I am sitting with a thing that I am not sure why I bought anyway. Help your wife to make a conscious effort to become aware of her spending and to start asking the question, “Do I really need this?” and see how many times she walks away. In the end you may need to get some financial counseling to overcome the compulsion to spend money on things. Keep me posted.
Keep on Keeping on,
Sean

Remember the only boxes that exist are the ones you create yourself.