iMindShift with Steve Chandler

Self-reliance in an age of gross dependency

"You only grow when you are alone."

              - Paul Newman
                 1925-2008

     Did you know that Paul Newman played the piano? I didn't either, until I saw him on Inside the Actors' Studio, and at the end of his interview, he wandered over to the piano and began playing.

     He also made salad dressing. And raced cars. And gave a ton of money to charity, and devoted lots of time to good causes, and stayed married to his wife all those years, and was such a beautiful expression of the life force because everything he did he put his heart into. He didn't become over-identified with his fame, or movies or anything else. He just lived.

    Becoming over-identified with anything is to kill the life force.

     Like Diahann Carrol in her autobiography called THE LEGS ARE THE LAST TO GO with a picture of her on the cover of the book over-identifying with her legs. As if there were any way we ourselves could care any less about how her legs looked. This is a grotesque age of juvenile narcissism. Especially from adults. There's an exaggerated neurotic focus on what other people think. Extreme and gross dependence.

     Why not spend some time alone?

     Solitude is where character, creativity and courage all grow strong.

     "The honest truth is that it's sad to be over sixty," concludes Nora Ephron in her book, I FEEL BAD ABOUT MY NECK. If you are over-identified with the body, it WOULD be sad to be over sixty. But how narcissistically juvenile are we willing to be?

     So much so that we buy things we can't even afford? Or that we over-eat for pleasure and emotional stuffing? Would a whole nation do that? Wouldn't it collapse economically if it did?

     There is a cure for the obesity epidemic in the United States. It was expressed long ago by Ralph Waldo Emerson in his wonderful essay on self-reliance. He wrote, "Instead of the gong for dinner, let us hear a whistle from a Spartan fife."

     Tom Wolfe studied the life of the novelist Balzac because he wanted to know how Balzac was so productive. How he wrote so much! Wolfe said of Balzac, "I am convinced that the reason this genius was so productive - he published at least sixty books between the ages thirty and fifty-one - was that he enjoyed no time- or labor-saving devices whatsoever, not even a typewriter. He dropped nothing and went nowhere at a moment's notice."

     We are victims of our own self-created, labor-saving abundance in America. We can entertain (in my case "distract from my mission") ourselves with countless delights. TV. Movies. Plays. Galleries. Etc. Ben Folds has a great song about this called "All U Can Eat." In the song he sings about overweight American people in SUVs driving around buying absolutely unnecessary things. His song's conclusion is:

     "God made us number one because he loves us the best

      Well maybe He should go bless someone else for a while, give us a rest" 

                                                      *  *  *   *   *   *

    A reader of this blog writes, "I would love to hear your take on our collective economy. Any ideas on how to be with this individually? Individually and collectively. I am aware of the paradox here. Werner Erhard said that paradox and confusion are the 2 dragons that guard the door of truth, or words to the effect. I am being with that the grass roots concept will be the way. And a collective grass roots movement-whatever that could be. Any ideas?"

     Here's my idea. Things are changing dramatically. Sick systems are getting cleaned out so that we can build back stronger. Fat and rot are being blown from the corridors of the financial complex. It scares people to become this healthy this fast. Hold on! Let me languish in the false sense of security I used to have!

     But change is a good thing. It allows us to develop self-reliance in an age of codependence. No longer do we ride the bubble, or look for parental companies to care for us. We grow.

     And as Andrew Cohen said, "It seems to be the human tendency to want to resist change, to want to create the illusion of security in an insecure universe, and to avoid at all costs facing into the awesome and unlimited nature of life itself."

     Hard times allow us to see that we ourselves have awesome and unlimited natures that we haven't even begun to call upon. 

     I will start a club that will teach people not to join clubs. Club paradox. A club for individuals who are willing to learn self reliance and become fearless. Club fearless. A club for people who want to express their awesome and unlimited natures without waiting for permission to do so.

CLUB FEARLESS
world mastermind

Around the pure loving energy

     When the mind is open, it will shift. 

     When the mind is closed, it won't. 

                                             * * * * * * * * * * * *

"Mastering others is strength.
Mastering yourself makes you fearless."

                               ~Lao Tzu

                                           * * * * * * * * * * * *

     So, first of all, let's picture James Dean's sports car.  Let's say you are just learning how to drive, and you're driving the sports car and James Dean is sitting next to you and you're down there in second gear and the car is kind of whining and complaining because you won't shift----you don't know how to shift---and the James is saying, "Just shift ... please, it's time to shift" because James knows the engine is being over-stressed and the car can only go so far in this gear, and you need to shift right now.

       And that's your life.

       But shifting isn't hard. It's a kind of upward, circular motion--- like a spiral upward--- but people don't know if they've never driven a car what shifting really is and how much it helps. 

     But if you've ever driven a gear shift kind of car, you know that when you shift, it just starts to glide into a new level of speed and glides along the road and things are better.  Then after a while, when you're in that next gear (let's say you are in third gear) and you go along for a while and pretty soon third gear isn't enough, it's not right, it can't hold where the car wants to go, so it's time to shift again. 

     Well, your mind, your soul, your heart, your life, your brain, your whole complex picture is the same way ... and there's a shift box inside the mind that is there for you.

     When I coach people I notice they are stuck somewhere, and a lot of different things keep them stuck, but what's next for them is a shift---a movement of that mental or spiritual arm---that's a kind of gliding spiral, and the arm is metaphorical---it's in the mind---it's an opening.  When the mind is open, it will shift. 

     Now when that happens it's beautiful!  A person then goes up to the next level of consciousness, spirituality, creativity, energy, vibration---whatever you want to call it---there's another level, and you know when you are going there.  You can feel it, because you glide. You feel like an angel.

      In a human being, there are many gears---there are many gears---not just five or six---there are many!  I would say for the sake of the fun of it, there might be a hundred gears. And you're into one of them right now.

      Could you shift without a coach or mentor? Of course! Many people who have worked with the Mind Shift CD series report a multiple series of shifts, just from listening, and then they listen again. When you listen again the CDs may be new, as if you've never heard them, because you are listening from a different level.

    Now a lot of people have asked me if I was going to produce a notebook with this Mind Shift audio stuff, and I originally wanted to, and my first intention was to create a notebook, a workbook, a guidebook and have people follow along and answer questions and fill things out, and I thought that's what a success course does ---that's how it would look like every other course.

    Then I realized why I didn't want to do that. And I'll tell you why.  It goes against the very nature of what I'm talking about to have a success/workbook/guidebook that you fill out.  It would kill the whole thing. It takes a nonlinear opportunity and tries to make it linear.....

     To change your life, you need to go nonlinear.

    
            The best seminar I could ever really give would be to put the people in a room, give them a blank pad, have silence pumped in, and allow them to simply sit and jot ideas down about what they would like to create in future days, and how they might like to bring miracles about and why.

     That would be a wonderful, wonderful eight hours for them, unlike anything they had ever done in their lives ever before---a full day of silence.  Just with their own thoughts, because so many inspired things bubble up.  That's why people say they get their best ideas on vacation, or they get their best ideas in the shower---it's the only time they're away from this frantic, addicted inner mental activity. 
   
     Sometimes I will ask a person to write down the one area in life they would like to get better at.  What talent, skill, ability that if you got better at that, your success would come to you much faster?  And almost everyone can identify that.  So write that down. 

     Now, the second thing I want you to write down is what's your current practice of that?  What do you currently do?  Regularly? How often do you book appointments with yourself to practice that?  And that's where people give me the blank stare. "I don't practice that."  OK.  Game over. 

    If I see myself in my self-concept as a creator, an enthusiastic creator, I'm reminded that the Greek word for enthusiasm is en theos, and en theos means the God within.  So that's my highest self.  When I'm walkin' and talkin' with the Prince of Peace down by the riverside, that's me at my best. However I see that walk and talk---I'm connected to the universe whatever religious or spiritual preference---it doesn't matter.  What matters is my devotion to it, and my ability to see myself as that. 

    And people say "Well, we were created in the image of our creator" and so many different spiritual disciplines will tell you, you were created in the image of your creator.  You are a child of God.  Well, if that's true, and I'm created in the image of my creator, then my business and my life ought to be about creating.  If I'm created in the image of my creator, then I will create.  I will not react. I will create.

                                                 * * * * * * * * * * * *

     "Around the pure loving energy that money is, we have wrapped beliefs such as shortage, obligation, hard work, loss, manipulation, security and survival. We have then wrapped layers of emotional consequences such as fear, frustration, anger and shame."
                                          ~ARNOLD M. PATENT

 

Write your own life movie script

   What is it that when I am doing it, time really is not an issue?  In other words, when I am doing that thing, I can look at the clock and say "Oh, my goodness, where did that hour go?  I can't believe it's 5 o-clock." Because I was so engaged, I left behind the linear world of tick tock, tick tock, time just creeping by, clock watching---that's just agonizing. 

     I'm sure all of us have had some kind of a job, or some kind of class we had to sit through, where we kept looking at the clock and it looked like it was the slowest thing in the world.  We couldn't wait for it to be over.  I remember working in some factories when I was younger and that clock would just go by so slowly.  We would watch the clock, then we would try not to watch the clock, and that's a good sign that that's not my true calling.  That's a very good sign of that. 

    So look back in your life.  Look at your current work.  When are the moments during the day when time's not an issue, because what that really means is that you're no longer trapped in a linear life; but you're in a much more whole, big-picture life where it's got all kinds of holographic, holistic, universal expansion---infinite, really, infinite expansion, and dimension to it. 

     That's where real creativity comes in, that's where unlimited energy comes in.  That's where your second wind is accessed.  In that moment.  In those callings.  So look for times when you feel that way, when there's no real time passing. That's the work you can do all day without getting tired, and that's the work you can just go on and on with and finish it until you are masterful. And you're not looking at the clock and you don't have one foot on the brake, and one foot on the gas. It's just both feet on the gas.  That's the work you'll do best at.  That's the work you'll make the most money at when you find it.

    Look again through your life.  What do you absolutely love to do?  Because for whatever wonderful reason, what you love to do, what you enjoy doing has got the greatest likelihood of making you the most money.  You'll simply give more of yourself to that, you'll be more fearless inside of it, more time will be naturally devoted to it, and therefore you'll make more money at it.  You'll rise to a higher stature within that category, given your devotion and your love of doing it.  So keep moving toward what you love.

     It's not always just one little particular thing that jumps out.  People think they just have to know it from a young age, "I just knew from a child that I wanted to be a rodeo clown, or I wanted to be a ballerina, or I knew I wanted to be a pro basketball player."  Now those are awfully specific.  It doesn't have to be that specific for it to be really fulfilling and gratifying.

        Look at the life of Woody Allen.  Now I go way back in terms of years, and I remember Woody Allen when he was a stand-up comedian and that's all he did, and he would go on stage and he would be nervous and tell these jokes; and he was a great writer of comedy so his jokes were hilarious, and he wasn't great at delivering anything, but he made that a plus by just exaggerating that. Hemming and hawing, and pulling at his sleeve, and coughing, and starting sentences over again. That was part of the fun.  But he truly was uncomfortable, standing up and delivering his comedy in that format.  So, he was close to what he loved, but not all the way there yet.  So then he made a move into writing short stories and little pieces for the New Yorker, then he wrote a play.  The play was put on, it got great reviews and it was fun for him to do, and then he wrote a movie, and then he wrote another movie, and he left stand-up comedy, he left writing plays and he really got into what he loved the most-writing and directing movies-and that became his thing and that became the way he made all the money he made. 

    Life can be that!  You keep moving a little bit here, a few degrees there and you keep evolving into things you love even more. So if you're working inside an organization, and you have a feeling that what you are doing is not your true calling, but it might be close enough that you are doing well, keep your mind open and keep looking because a little move here, a little move there, and you can keep moving closer and closer and closer to it. 

     A lot of people these days change jobs easily, leave their work and start a business at home.  I have a lot of clients who are in one job for a major organization of some kind, but in the back of their mind always wanted to do something else.  Let's say they loved arts and crafts, they love the internet. So in their spare time they would sell arts and crafts on the internet and set up a website and they would do that in the evenings, and have fun with that over the weekend, and then that spare hobby job would become so good and so fruitful that they would be in a position financially to move from their day- job into their home-office job full time.  I've had a lot of my coaching clients do that, and so that's an easy way to transition from job to job these days.  If you want to start something on your own, you don't have to quit your job to do it, you can do a little bit of it here and there and let it grow nicely on the side and once you get the signs that it's up and running and that it can support you, boom ... you're gone and that's what you do. 

    Other friends of mine have left the company they are with, and then sold themselves back to that company as a consultant, so now they only go in one day a week, do their very best thing, get a nice fee for that, and use the other four days for things they love to do even more. 

    So in today's global market, with all the leverage that the internet gives you to reach out to the world instantly, it's much easier to find what you love to do and tap into it than it ever was before.  Much easier.  A lot of people I know now are writing books.  They would never have dreamed of writing books before, because in the past (not too distant past) if you wrote a book, you had to find a publisher.  Otherwise, your book would never be in any bookstores and so people would not have a chance of reading your book.  Shelf space was everything.  How do I get a publisher that would get my book on the shelves in the bookstores so I have a chance of becoming an author who is popular?  Well today you can skip all those steps!  You can publish your own book, and people can buy it off your website.  You can even put it on Amazon, after you have published it yourself and people buy it not knowing, or caring, whether your book has been published by a major publisher or is self-published.  Many of them don't even know.  A lot of authors today who have had books published by major publishers, also self-publish some of their books and their readers don't know which is which, or care.  Who cares?  If a book is good and it looks good enough to read, why do I care where it was published?  Makes no difference. 

    So these, days if you've got something you are good at, something you are good at writing about or expressing,  in any other way, as music, as video, as anything--the internet offers the ability for you to take it right to the world directly, and if it's good, you can make money off of it immediately.  So the prospects for creating wealth are greater than ever before for someone born into this global market, with the access that you have with your computer to the entire market. I know these are "hard times" but that's just a thought that drags you down.

     More than ever before, it's vital and important that you find what your true calling is, that you access that, that you really look back in your life and ask yourself, when, while working or interacting with humans, have I been happiest?  Really answer that question.  It could be that you were taking care of some elderly people once, and doing it as a favor to a family member, and it gave you great job.  Well, you might want to start an elder care center or service where you go into people's homes; but find it in what you love.  There's an old saying:  "Do what you love, and the money will follow." It's really true, the more you can get close to what it is that you love doing, the faster people will want to be with you, will want to access that; because people really love to pay for things that are joyfully created, joyfully delivered in terms of service.  They love paying for that.  They don't like paying for things that are reluctantly delivered, poor work, you can really tell that that person really doesn't like working there.  We've all had that experience--of going into some restaurant, or some store, or some place of business, where we can tell that the people in there were hired because they were teenagers and you didn't have to pay them much, or for some reason other than them loving that work.  And because they don't love that work---it's very obvious---they serve you poorly, they're rude, they don't even look at you when they check you out.  It's completely negative experience.  And the chances of that operation really thriving in the long run are not great.  No love, no money.

     What we really have the ability to do is to link love, service and wealth together.  In the past those three things were not linked.  That was not the key to making money.  Today it is.  We're enlightened enough to see it and the global marketplace is fertile enough to receive it.  Love, service, wealth.  Love, service, wealth.  If I can get that pattern going----get that rhythm----get that mantra in my mind.  What do I love to do for people?  How can I serve more people with it?  And wealth will come as a result of that. 

     In the past, it was different.  In the very near past it was duty, it was obligation, it was you have to figure out a way to earn a living, you have to somehow win a position, somewhere, and it was all a STRUGGLE and it was all about manipulating, and politics and winning people over, and playing the game.  All the old style, hierarchal structures of companies based on the old monarchy systems where there are superior humans and then subservient serfs---and that whole paradigm is being dissolved by powerful individuals who do what they love, then sell it, and make a lot of money, and keep the thing rolling. Fearless.

Do not hide your own light

 
"Life shrinks or expands
in proportion to one's courage"

        - ANAIS NIN

   We have reached a time around this planet that calls on our individual courage and creativity more
than ever before.

    Having some group or government help you make it through the dark night may be a successful political sales pitch, but it will be  Y O U R   O W N   L I G H T  that leads the way for you.

   Many people think that courage is an outdated concept that now only applies to the military or sports or the terminally ill. Others vilify the idea that the individual human being  personally creates success or failure.

   I have decided to form a group of people, a network, or a club, if you will ... a circle of individuals who stand for individual freedom.  Freedom from what? Freedom from self-victimization. Freedom from the inner Velcro of thought clusters that coagulate into belief systems that have that individual use his or her precious mind for nothing but worrying about the anxious future. Freedom from  being a constant victim of circumstance.

    Freedom from fear. Freedom from the fruitless quest to impress others in order to get money and appreciation. Freedom. Freedom to create.

    And then create again and again!

    That's the freedom I want to inspire, so I'm starting a network for it, worldwide. A circle for individual success. I wouldn't mind if it grew to a billion people. A billion fearless people not afraid to reinvent themselves every single morning.

    I wrote the book REINVENTING YOURSELF with this in mind. Am I trying to sell you that book by saying that? No. Email me and I'll give it to you. It's a book about being a victim, and only because I wasted my life as a victim (for more years than most of you reading this have been alive.)

   And to say you are a courageous individual does not mean that we are not all one. Both realities, when harmonized, lift each other to the heavens.

   I want to devote my life to this group of individuals, who take individual responsibility for their success and happiness. And who are willing to, now, finally, after waiting so long, just wake up each day and GO FOR IT.

   In REINVENTING YOURSELF I talk about my experience years ago with my daughter Stephanie.

    In order for us to learn to be owners of the human spirit, it helps if we know what being an owner looks and feels like. It helps to have a picture.

    I remember a few years ago when I gave two of my daughters a picture.

    Margie and Stephanie were both rehearsing for school singing assignments. Margie was in 6th grade singing a school choir solo of a song from Beauty and the Beast, and Stephanie was rehearsing for the junior high school talent show, in which she was singing a Mariah Carey song called "Hero."

     Both girls asked me to listen to their rehearsals, and I did, and I told them that they sounded good enough musically. Both girls had good voices and were hitting the notes, but something was missing: the spirit-the vital principle-the animating force.

     I told them it was okay to let loose a little. To really get into it. I recommended that they start to over-rehearse. To rehearse enough times to reach a state of ownership of the song. To get that feeling that the song was all theirs.  Flowing out of them naturally, powerfully.

    Margie pinned a piece of paper to the wall of her bedroom and made a mark on it every time she sang her song. She sang it over, and over, and over.

    Stephanie also rehearsed more and more, and still her song was coming out tentative and prissy, held way back.

    But they both pushed on.

    Finally, Margie's concert came and she was great. She stood out when her solo came because she sang with fire and force, whereas the other girls and boys that night were like little cautious robots. The extra rehearsals had given Margie ownership.

    Next up was Stephanie's talent show, and things still weren't right with her song. Her rehearsals still weren't taking it anywhere.

    So I got an idea. I went to a video store and found a used copy of a musical documentary of Janis Joplin's life. It contained a concert performance that I had been lucky enough to be present at personally-her performance at Monterey Pop Festival with her band Big Brother and The Holding Company.

    At the time of the concert I was stationed at the Presidio of Monterey in the U.S. Army. I was there that late afternoon sitting by myself in a fourth row seat when Janis blew a hole in the music world with her performance of "Ball and Chain." The moment is also captured in the film Monterey Pop as Mama Cass Elliot is seen in the same audience in a reaction shot to Janis Joplin, her mouth gaping in awe.

    Janis Joplin was on fire that day. I never saw anything like it. None of today's feisty, angry female rockers quite have the exact spirit, because Janis wasn't as angry as she was, well, on fire.

    I put the videotape in for Stephanie and Margie to watch, and I'd cued it up to the performance of "Ball and Chain." We watched together, and as usual, I got goose bumps and tears in my eyes when I watched it.

    I got that same feeling I always get when I see the ownership spirit. I got it when I saw the early, young Elvis. I used to get it watching a lyrically insane football player named Chuck Cecil play football. I've gotten it watching Michael Jordan play basketball with the flu and still outplay the whole court. Or watching Alvin Lee and Ten Years After at Woodstock. I've gotten it watching Pavarotti sing "Nessum Dorma" and almost explode with the joy and volume of the song. I've gotten it watching Marlon Brando in One-Eyed Jacks and Jack Nicholson in A Few Good Men. I've gotten it hearing Buffy Ste. Marie sing "God Is Alive, Magic Is Afoot" from Leonard Cohen's Beautiful Losers. When you're in the presence of an owner of the spirit, you know the feeling.

     Owners of the spirit are beautiful losers. They risk all. They are losers because they have lost all fear of embarrassment. They have lost all inhibition. They have lost all concern for what other people might think.

     Stephanie's eyes grew a little wider as Janis Joplin sang on. The passion and abandon and power in that one small woman was something that only a corpse would be unmoved by. When the song was over, the video showed Mama Cass mouthing the word "wow" just as Stephanie was saying, "Wow."

    While I was putting the tape away, I told Stephanie, "There are times in life when you know you have a chance to really go for it. You are a great singer, so I know you're going to sing your song very well in the show. You have to decide for yourself how much you're going to go for it. You are never who you think you are. You can be anyone you want. When you're singing, you might remember Janis Joplin."

    The night of the talent show was fun and lighthearted. I had all but forgotten about my Janis Joplin lecture with Stephanie, and I was just there to enjoy the show and see her sing.

    After a few acts in which the performers showed varying degrees of talent and self-consciousness, it was Stephanie's turn. She had a compact disc of the background music and background vocals to the song "Hero" and she stepped out on stage in a black dress and began the song as her friends in the audience in the gym cheered and clapped to encourage her.

    Her voice was a little weak and nervous at the start, although right on pitch as she softly sang through the first verse, looking out at the crowd and occasionally smiling with self-consciousness. As her song continued to build, I saw something start to change in Stephanie. She stomped her high-heeled shoe forward as the song took the turn into the last verse and she was no longer smiling. Her voice grew louder and louder and you could tell that the audience no longer existed for her. It was just the song. I began to get tears in my eyes and I could feel my heart race and my throat tighten, and I remember thinking, "She's going for it, she's going for it."

    Stephanie rounded the corner into the last chorus in full possession of the song, sending it through her spirit and out into the auditorium in a way that I'd never heard her sing before. The kids in the audience jumped to their feet and raised their hands and started screaming, but Stephanie's voice soared beyond them, above it all, living only for itself as the song came to an end among the loudest sustained cheers of the evening.

    Even grownups were on their feet at the end, knowing that they had seen a moment they themselves may not have lived in a long while-a moment of the human spirit on fire.

    I turned to my friends and family and said, "Wow." I was inspired. I'd shown Stephanie Janis Joplin, and then Stephanie showed me Stephanie. The trick is to pass it on.

    Oliver Wendell Holmes observed, "Most people go to their graves with their music still in them." He was right, most people do. But that's because they've never heard that music. They simply don't know it's there.

    There was nothing in the CIRCUMSTANCE itself that caused Stephanie to find her spirit. The whole point of watching the Janis Joplin video was to show her that it can be invented.

    You can tap into the spirit in yourself. Any time you want. It's always there. Stephanie doesn't have anything that you don't have. Janis Joplin didn't have anything that Stephanie didn't have.

    The next time you see the spirit in someone else, don't just admire it; think of how to do your own version of it. Don't envy it; duplicate it.

     Talk to yourself. Start thinking about it.  Practice saying, "I can do that!" every time you see someone do something great. Most people say, "Wow, I could never do that."
                                                                                            
        They've built a deep neural pathway with that negative affirmation. By saying, "I could never do that," they deepen the illusion that they are stuck in something mediocre, that they are stuck being someone mediocre.

    You can set yourself free by how you talk to yourself about your capabilities. The greatness you see in others is in you. I promise you that you can find it inside you, no matter who you are.

    No matter who you've invented yourself to be. You can reinvent yourself. And I recommend that you do it daily.

    Stephanie saw herself in Janis. You will see yourself in Stephanie. Someday I will see myself in you. The trick is to pass it on.

Here's the video of Ball and Chain...
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=mGJynZNr7rk 
   

When the going gets weird

    "When the going gets weird,
          the weird turn pro."

        ~Dr. Hunter S. Thompson

                                                                        *  *  *  *

       I understand that people now believe that things are difficult in the world of business. I decided to form a group that will take a different approach to that widespread belief.

       This group will focus on the true source of our financial security: our own effort ... and our own creative work. The sole purpose and focus of this group will be client acquisition.

     We will work with each other to dramatically increase our number of clients, and the quality of clients using our services.

     After having filled two successful mastermind groups of twenty people each, and having successfully filled two coaching schools of nine coaches each, we will now combine the very best and most effective practices and processes in those groups to help each member of this new mastermind get clients.

     The Client Acquisition Mastermind group will have just ten members and will begin on January 10th in Tempe, Arizona, from 8am to 11:30 am to be continued there the second Saturday of each month thereafter for nine months.

     I am limiting the number of group members to ten because I want each member's client list to receive an abundance of time and attention in each of the nine sessions.

     This group will also contain strong levels of accountability and participation in the days that occur between each session. We will have systems for maintaining progress between the live sessions. My experience tells me that what gets measured gets done.

     Who am I looking for to join this mastermind? I want people who are willing to participate enthusiastically, embrace the work we do, and be fully committed to increasing the quality and quantity of their client base throughout our nine months together.

     I do not want, and will not accept, anyone in the group who is there just to observe others, or who expects to be given something that requires no courage or effort to receive. No expectant people who sit in judgment of things. Please do not join if you just bring expectations. Come only if you will bring a commitment (an internal agreement with us and yourself) to make something happen dramatically in your world. This will be a group of people ready to roll up our sleeves, not a group looking for a bail out.

     In my two coaching schools many of the participants have had breathtaking advances in their client acquisition (and resultant prosperity). I will employ all the elements of those schools' successes to this mastermind. Every moment we spend together will be for the sole purpose of acquiring clients. We will not digress or be distracted from this subject.

    Only ten people will be in this mastermind of client acquisition. The first ten who respond to the call in a committed way will be chosen. The fee is $9,000 to join. Email me now if you want to fully participate. 100Ways@Compuserve.com

With kindest regards,

Steve Chandler

                                                            * * * * *

     "Most people today still have to learn that they cannot get
something for nothing, but must give before receiving or must sow
before reaping. When they do not give or sow in terms of
prosperity, they make no contact with God's lavish abundance, and
so there is no channel formed through which the rich, unlimited
substance of the universe can pour forth its riches to them."

                            ~Catherine Ponder

WHAT IF YOU LOVED EXERCISE?

    Here's one of my heroes, Jack LaLanne, in his 90s, loving exercise. What if you loved exercise? How would life be different? Can you choose to love something you do not think you love?

    I have been invited to be the "motivational" speaker at a very exciting event in Scottsdale, Arizona Saturday, November 8. It's called, "What If You Loved Exercise?" The event is from 8 a.m. to 12 p.m. at the Virginia G. Piper Cancer Center. This is part of an amazing program they have developed for cancer survivors called, The NEXT Step: Power and Healing through Exercise.

     Please come to this event. Many of you have sent me emails over the past years asking if I do any public speaking engagements that you can attend. Normally I do not. Except for this one!

     This is a "comprehensive approach to integrating physical activity into your life." Their invitation says, "Wear loose, comfortable clothing and get ready to begin your active life!"

    You'll also enjoy the Cancer Patient Panel: Cancer survivors will discuss how exercise has impacted their lives and recovery. The event is being held at the Scottsdale Healthcare Shea Conference Center, 9003 E. Shea Blvd, RSVP today! Space is limited. Breakfast is included!!!! Call 480-323-1250.

                                                       *******************

I can't afford to die.  It'll wreck my image.

- Jack Lalanne

                                                      *******************

     In TEN COMMITMENTS TO YOUR SUCCESS I talked about reading Ken Wilber's fantastic book, One Taste. Wilber is a hero of mine for having written so many amazing books about spirituality and psychology, and how to combine them to have a great life. In One Taste, he talked about how weight lifting had unexpectedly improved his writing! (How these commitments all feed each other!)

     And then I'd also read about 107 year old football coach Amos Alonzo Stagg who attributed his longevity to running and walking and forcing great quantities of oxygen into his system. The connection between health and breathing and life energy keeps getting stronger as more research is done. Nobel Prize winner Dr. Otto Warburg said that cancer is often associated with the replacement of normal oxygen respiration by oxygen deficient respiration.

     And in her inspiring book on energy and weight loss, Jump Start Your Metabolism, Pam Grout points out, "…people with slow metabolisms also suffer from sluggish blood flow. Like your great aunt Ethel, it can't get around like it used to. The Chinese refer to the blood as a sacred, restless red dragon that must be continually fed. Deep breathing is the button that feeds the dragon and keeps the blood moving."

     One morning in a hotel I had the TV on and it played an old black and white show from the 50's with LaLanne. Coincidentally (or not) I had just heard an interview with LaLanne on a car trip. LaLanne had just turned 89 and recent newspaper photos made him look like he was in fabulous shape!

         "I work out for two hours every morning, seven days a week," said LaLanne. "Even when I'm traveling.  I hate it.  But I love the result!  That's the key, baby! The only way you can hurt your body is if you don't use it."
       
       I taped a bunch of his half-hour TV programs from the 50's and I began working out with them. I mixed in going to the health club and walking with my CD player and my energy, far from being drained, grew stronger.
      
       "The guy who's most impressed me is Paul C. Bragg," said Jack LaLanne. "He completely saved my life.  When I was a kid, I was addicted to sugar.  I was a skinny kid with pimples and boils.  Used to eat ice cream by the quart.  I had blinding headaches.  I tried to commit suicide.  And then one day, my life changed.  Bragg was a nutritionist.  My mother and I were a little late getting to his lecture.  The place was packed, and so we started to leave.  But Bragg said, 'We don't turn anybody away here.  Ushers, bring two seats.  Put those two up on the stage.'  It was the most humiliating moment.  There I was, up on stage.  I was so ashamed of the way I looked; I didn't want people to see me.  Little did I know they had problems, too.  And Bragg said, 'It doesn't matter what your age is, what your physical condition is.  If you obey nature's laws, you can be born again.'  From that moment on, I completely changed my diet, began to exercise, and went on to become captain of the football team.  And do you know something?  Every time I get ready to lecture, I think, if I can just help one person like I was helped…."
 
      Come to the event November 8th and bring a friend.

                                               ****************************

    This is a photo of Jacob with his friend the good dog Simon, who died suddenly and unexpectedly last week. Join me in prayers for Simon's spirit, eternal and free now, and prayers to Jacob's family who miss Simon and will never forget him. Simon lives in our hearts and minds forever. It's where he always was and always will be

GOALS CAN FREAK YOU OUT

             "Make each day your masterpiece."
                                          ---John Wooden

   Here is a photo of our little Pineapple Princess (see earlier blog post) in a pumpkin patch enjoying life as it comes. She had no expectations prior to arriving at the patch. She just showed up and enjoyed life. No goals for her.

   Goals are great when used in their proper and highly limited way. But they can only do so much. And if you focus too much on the OUTCOME goal you want to achieve, that goal can turn on you ... like a former beloved house pet who has become a vicious, rabid dog.

    Soon the optimistic prospect of hitting that goal turns to fear ... fear of not achieving it. Soon the very sight of the goal becomes a downer---it reminds you that you are a failure, because you're so far away from achieving what you really want.

     And fear is not a good place to come from. I wrote a book about that recently, a book about how people can actually become fearless. But there is nothing in that book about doing it through the setting of huge outcome goals.

     Fear shuts down all playful, creative activity. Intuition disappears. We contract into a small self, like the trembling heart of a captive bird.

     So if you choose to set goals, use them wisely. Use them as game-setters, defining a winning score. But once you have done that, drop them. Like the booster rockets on the moon shot were dropped into the ocean. You don't take those rockets all the way to the moon, if you tried, you would die. Let your goals fall into the sea.

     Here's another way to look at it. Embrace the concept of process versus outcome. Process goals are all doable throughout your day. Like sending out three business proposals today, or doing 20 pushups. They are action items. You can ALWAYS achieve them, and feel the satisfaction and fulfillment of having done so. (And, paradoxically, they will get you to your OUTCOME faster than outcome goals will. Outcome goals push your outcome away from you.)

     If my outcome goal is to weigh 175 pounds by September 1, 2009, then I will want to go immediately to process. The outcome exists only to boost and inform the process.  What might my daily process goals be? To log 10,000 steps a day on my pedometer? To keep my caloric intake at a certain number in my food journal. To avoid all flour and sugar, just for today? To weigh myself daily? (What gets measured in life gets done.) All of this is process.

     Anyone can work a process. Anyone can do this for a day, and this day is all I have anyway, it's the only leverage point I can EVER operate from, if I am going to weigh 175 it will be because of something I do today. This is good news. The long-tern vision is intimidating. Today is not intimidating.

     This is a different version of what we have been talking about here before. Expectation versus agreement. Outcome goals set up expectations, which are nervous disorders in the human system. But process goals are simple agreements I make with myself. I've made a new CD-MP3 about this if you prefer AUDIO to reading, you can get Expectation versus Agreement here:  http://www.stevechandler.com/eBooks.html.

   

JANE AUSTEN REVEALED

"Great ideas come into the world as gently as doves." - Albert Camus

***************************

     Why does anyone care about two guys reading Jane Austen? Why would two guys read Jane Austen?

      How did this Two Guys thing get started, anyway?

      Well, one day my lifelong friend Terry Hill and I were talking about our junior high school days together. (Terry is a playwright, an award-winning advertising copywriter, a publisher of poems and articles, etc. etc. and he and I knew each other way, no WAY...back when.)

      And we agreed that we had never actually read Moby Dick, nor did we know anyone else who had read it. Ever. All the way through, I mean. Not Cliff's Notes or (my old favorite cheat method) Classics Comics. The real book. Who had read it? No one. Oh, many people have been tested on that book. It has been assigned to students forever and ever. But who has read it? We couldn't find one person.

     So we decided to be the first to ever do it...we would be like Neil Armstrong setting foot on the moon.

      And to do a major FIRST like this, we would want to chronicle the event...to even write a book about it. (We knew that others would write about us having read this book, like maybe Tom Wolfe who wrote THE RIGHT STUFF)...but we wanted to be the first to write about our accomplishment. So we did. And much to our surprise, it not only got published, but it won a ton of critical rave notices and created a following for us. We had book clubs assigning our book and college professors writing to us about it.

      So we did a second book, TWO GUYS READ THE OBITUARIES. We read the obituaries each morning for a full year and wrote about death and life. To each other. Again, we were surprised at the response. People wanted more. Oh, sure, some of my "personal growth" and self help fans were angry at me. They thought I'd let them down by going all shallow and frivolous on them. So what? Can't we all have a little fun?

      Finally our wives said that Jane Austen ought to be our next challenge. I winced. Really? Come on. But a challenge is a challenge. And I resolve not to go gently into that good night, but rather to rage, RAGE against the dying of the light by saying YES to every challenge.

      Jane was an amazing surprise to me. I won't spoil what happens in this book. But TWO GUYS READ JANE AUSTEN is ....of all the books I've written....the book I am happiest with......it is the ONE I would want to stay in print after you read my obituary.......it is the first book I've ever been involved with that really looked fearlessly at love and women and men's relationships with women......don't get scared.....there's also some humor....both intentional and unintentional....Terry is brilliant and funny......
and Jane?....well Jane is Jane. There is no one like Jane.

                                      *************************

Now when all the clowns that you have commissioned
Have died in battle or in vain
And you're sick of all this repetition
Won't you come see me, Queen Jane ?

BOB DYLAN

 

JUST TOUCH THE MOON

   This is my finger touching an actual moon rock on display at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida. I have touched the moon. 

    Kathy and I are watching the series FROM THE EARTH TO THE MOON produced by Tom Hanks (available for rent on Netflix) and after the second episode, the one about the astronauts who perished in the fire in the capsule, there wasn't a dry eye in the house. Highly recommended!

     Many people don't realize how influential our reading and viewing choices can be to our personal development as citizens, as parents, as professionals and as humans. They make all the difference in the world. One of the things I love to do with my mastermind and coaching school groups is ask them to share with me the movies that most moved and inspired them. Why not watch those? Instead of the steady stream of clever vulgarity coming from Hollywood today.

     One of the movies I've been recommending a lot lately is THE CROSSING with Jeff Daniels as George Washington. It is centered on a dramatic battle in the Revolutionary War.  Amazing dramatization of what commitment can do when one person holds it for a whole group of doubters.

     Commitment and agreement are the courageous antidotes to victim thinking, and especially people in the grip of the ultimate mind parasite: EXPECTATION.

     Expectation leads to disappointment. Whereas agreement and commitment lead to ACTION and RESULTS. I can expect an employee to be on time for my team meeting, but if he is chronically late, that's a reflection of my leadership, not a reflection of his character.

     So the solution is not to tell him that I EXPECT him to be on time, but rather to create an agreement. By creating a mutual agreement, I can learn a lot. We can let each other know what we can count on from each other. Perhaps he was late because he was keeping a commitment to another segment of the company...or because his daycare didn't open up until our meeting time and he had the children...I just don't know until I seek the agreement.

     Expect nothing. When people are not doing what you want, seek an agreement and make mutual commitments inside the agreement. It seems too simple. How could it be that easy? It's not. It takes courage.

     It's much easier to walk around with my head filled up with expectations (and therefore disappointments.) When I expect things it puts the burden on others to come through and LIVE UP to what I expect. It's cowardly. It disconnects me from the true source of my inner power to communicate boldly ... to shape events with requests and commitments. It's easier to just expect things to happen. Then when they don't I can indulge in my anger and frustration. I can plunge my rattle into my pillow and howl ... about how other people are letting me down. That's easy.

      Nathaniel Branden said it best when he said, "Suffering is the easiest thing we humans do." Of course it is. It allows us no growth. No maturity. No development. No accumulated adult strength of purpose. Just tantrums.

      Byron Katie said, "Sadness is a tantrum." It's a rejection of what is and a childish strike against reality. God's wrong again. He has made another mistake and boy am I sad.

      All of this can be solved by my waking up and smelling the roses. I write about this in FEARLESS, how one can turn all this around. How the fear of death can fade away. How commitments can be joyfully made and how thrilling total focus can be. It can take you to the moon.

WHAT HUMAN MINDS CAN DO

      

     Here’s a picture of me standing under the thrusters of the rocket that went to the moon. Kathy and I were visiting the Kennedy Space Center in Florida, and the sights were truly amazing.

    I had no idea the rockets were that large and complex. We were astonished by many sights at the NASA site and vowed to return soon to get an even longer tour.

     Two days after we got back home to Arizona we put on "Apollo 13," the great Tom Hanks movie about the near-disaster voyage to the moon that was rescued so heroically.

     Amazing what human minds can do when working together for an exciting mission. Contrast those brilliant, demanding and courageously sober explorations of space with the hangover our nation is experiencing from the banks and Wall Street having been on a reckless credit bender, borrowing and leveraging drunkenly, buoyed by the intoxication of personal financial gain.

                                            * * * * * * * * * * *

     One of the reasons the visit to the shuttle launch sites in Florida was so much fun was because we had no expectations.

     We were curious. Yes. And both Kathy and I were fascinated by everything astronautical. The inspiring, heart-stopping documentary, "In the Shadow of the Moon¸" was an all-time favorite.

     But we didn’t expect much of anything as we drove through the marshes and the swamps along Cape Canaveral to get to this space center. When you have no expectations, you can really be blown away.

     My visit to Florida was only partially a vacation. The rest was devoted to delivering a seminar to leaders of a prominent semi-conductor company. The leaders had come in from all over the world for their annual convention and I had them for four hours.

     Our main subject was expectations. How leaders fail when they carry expectations. And how they succeed when they drop all expectations and replace them with agreements.

     Expectations are toxic and cowardly. Agreements are healing and courageous.

     When leaders expect things from their people, anxiety sets in immediately. No one enjoys trying to live up to another’s expectations. In fact, they begin immediately to rebel against those expectations.

     This applies to personal life as well. The more expectations you have of your romantic partner, the worse the relationship gets.

     A client of mine recently sounded very depressed as I was talking to him. I asked him to slow down and tell me what was really on his mind.

     “I had a fight with my wife yesterday,” he said.

     “I’m sorry to hear that.”

     “You know what that’s like, I’m sure.”

     “Actually, no. Kathy and I have never had a fight.”

     “Come on.”

     “No.”

     “You’re just saints, or what?”

     “We just don’t fight. No interest in it.”

     “Aren’t fights supposed to be cleansing? Purging?”

     “You tell me.”

     “I feel awful.”

     “There you go.”

     “How do you avoid it?”

     “Do you have a best friend? A real good buddy?”

     “Yes.”

     “Do you ever fight with him?”

     “Not really.”

     “Same principle.”

                                       * * * * * * * * * * *

     I talked to my wife-fighting client about expectations. If he had no expectations, he could never be upset.

     If you have expectations of someone—your spouse—your employee—only two things can happen. 1) They meet your expectations, which means you feel nothing because it was what you expected. Or, 2) They don’t live up to your expectations so you are DISAPPOINTED. There are a lot of very disappointed people in the world because of this toxic thing called expectations.

     There is a way out ...stay tuned and I’ll continue this in the next blog. (And you’ll enjoy that blog all the more if you expect nothing from it.)

                               * * * * * * * * * * *

    Here is a photo of Rob Owen (in China, with friends), a friend and mastermind coaching client of mine who is also a talented college teacher and VP of IT at the prestigious Microchip Technology company.

    Rob has written a wonderful piece about coaches and being coached called
CIRCLES in LIFE which I urge you all to read. You can click here to access it and read it........Wonderful insights into the nature of coaching and mentoring and how we humans help each other succeed.