Create your Destiny

Before The Secret became a huge commercial success, Napoleon Hill had it all figured out.

Around the year 1908 journalist Napoleon Hill was both challenged and given an opportunity by Andrew Carnegie to spend twenty years of his life interviewing the most successful, brilliant, and influential minds of the day without any offer of monetary compensation. He accepted the challenge, and among the people went on to study were notable businessmen and inventors Henry Ford, John D. Rockefeller, Teddy Roosevelt, John Wanamaner, Charles Schwab, Wilbur Wright, and Dr. Alexander Graham Bell.

Napoleon’s goal was to uncover the key common elements that underpinned extraordinary success and to share this knowledge with the rest of the world. The results of his efforts were published in 1937 in his bestselling book Think and Grow Rich.

Far from a dusty old relic, the topics he wrote about would many years later become a cornerstone of the new age, manifest your destiny movement. For example, the title of chapter one is “Thoughts are Things”, and the book’s opening notes mention the phrase “the secret” sixteen times, not including the occasions when he refers to the concept as “Carnegie’s secret”, or “this secret”.

Yet despite the sale of almost 20 million copies, most of the book’s concepts never became mainstream, so when a number of his ideas were re-introduced in the 21st century in conjunction with “The Secret’s” books and DVD’s, much of the content was thought revolutionary when in fact it was almost a century old!  Actually, the key ideas that Napoleon documented and “The Secret” re-introduced are timeless in nature and have benefited humanity for countless centuries. The first step in successful utilization of this knowledge begins with awareness.

In the video clip below he recounts how Andrew Carnegie shared with him the life changing idea that:

“everyone comes to the earth plane blessed with the privilege of controlling his mind power and directing it to whatever ends he may choose.”

He also touches on the concepts of gratitude, choice, and ultimate personal responsibility. Check it out:

Did you actually watch it? I know, I know, seven minutes is an eternity in internet time!  Over the next few postings I will go through some of Mr. Hill’s work in more detail because I find it fascinating and because I believe that his ideas are both powerful and relevant. Many people, myself included, can benefit by becoming better acquainted with the priceless knowledge that he captured.  Stay tuned!

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Let’s see, I just finished reading Eckhart Tolle’s first book, but now he’s got a new one that’s a big hit on Oprah…gotta make time for that one. Yesterday I finished listening to an audio series by Deepak, but there’s the one from Anthony Robbins that been gathering dust on my shelf, mocking me every time I walk by without popping it into the DVD player. Then there’s those books I ordered from Amazon last month on linguistics and psychotherapy, the articles I NEED to write for my own site and all of those really insightful RSS feeds I haven’t gotten to yet but that I know I REALLY NEED to read. After all, I pared down my subscription feeds to a mere eight so that I wouldn’t feel overwhelmed anymore. But gosh, I’m so far behind and I NEED TO catch up. Maybe I’ll block out a couple of hours a day until I am able to feel as though I’m all caught up. After all, all of this stuff is supposed to make me smarter, happier, and just an overall better person. But man, there’s so much to do…

S T O P !!!

Personal development is supposed to be fun. After all, if it sucked so bad there wouldn’t be so many of us pursuing it. Face it, you have to get the grass cut and do laundry and at least slow down for red lights, but are your neighbors going to complain to the homeowners board if you’re not up on the latest in present moment awareness or if you haven’t reframed all of your limiting beliefs? The fact is that so many of us are engaged in the ongoing process of personal development because of the incredible rewards it offers. But that doesn’t mean it can’t also be fun.

Personal development is the journey of continuing to learn and grow as a person alongside whatever else happens to occupy your day. Unless of course you’ve made it your full time endeavor to assist others with their own personal growth. Then it pretty much is what you do. If so, you certainly don’t want a client or a subscriber knowing more than you about the latest and hottest success guru, do you? Or worse yet, have some smarty pants commenter on your blog point out something insightful that you yourself weren’t capable of thinking of. God forbid!!!

Personal Development is supposed to be fun!

Even when you are doing it for a living. Especially when you are doing it for a living. Who cares if somebody knows more than you about the latest emotional healing technique, soul reading method, dowsing procedure, or the hottest author from Oprah? What a blessing if this is so! It means that somebody else has already put in the effort to acquire the knowledge and all you have to do is learn from them as they share the best of what they’ve come to know. Often this beats the heck out of starting from nowhere by yourself and trying to achieve the same level of understanding. That’s less work for you and more time to play Halo3.

Personal development is not a race, and we are not judged objectively by our friends, relatives, coworkers, fellow bloggers, or anyone else I can think of. Subjectively, people can and will judge the hell out of you, but why should you care?  Setting your internal compass to the widely scattered courses charted by the opinions of others is guaranteed to get you nowhere in particular and feeling a whole lot less than authentic as you try to keep making corrections to the course of public perception.

Truth is, there is no objective outside source of how you are growing personally because personal growth happens from the inside out. YOU are in charge of discovering your own unique purpose, deciding weather you are going to live to it or not, and interpreting what every experience you have means to YOU along the way.

You can even choose to not have a purpose, not to grow, and not to listen to or read any anything from any of the gurus I mentioned previously. There’s no boss cracking a whip over your shoulder if you should fail to “get it”. The life you live is its own reward or punishment. You can just go out and have fun for the sake of having fun, and when you get tired enough of repeating certain experiences over and over you will eventually become self motivated enough to become interested in personal growth. It’s the ultimate in freedom of choice.

Here are Some Tips on Making Personal Development Fun Again:

1.  Don’t take yourself too seriously.

Seriously, just don’t.  There rest of us are too busy taking ourselves seriously and we demand that you focus on us instead of worrying about what we think about you. We’re not thinking about you…we’re too busy thinking about ourselves.

2.   Personal growth doesn’t happen in a vacuum. Real growth only happens when you interact with other people.

All the books and tapes don’t mean anything if you act like a sh*t towards the cashier, the waiter, or that customer service rep on the phone who isn’t personally responsible for the problem you’ve been experiencing. Measure your growth in the responses you generate from others and make it a point to have a good time while doing so. The smiles you get back will be plenty of reward, and you’ll find yourself smiling inside as well.

3.  Realize that trying to be the most knowledgeable person on all things self improvement is an impossibility and attempting to do so would be a huge pain in the ass.

There’s a huge ego investment in feeling like you have to know more than anybody else so that you don’t ever look foolish or be caught sounding ignorant. If you’re ever guilty simply refer back to #1 above.

And in Conclusion:

Live with authenticity. Be happy being yourself and work to change the things you don’t like along the way. It’s pretty much a never ending process so there’s no need to try and rush out and get it all done at once. Enjoy the process, and above all, be aware of how you show up and the way you treat others. Hey - didn’t some long haired guy with a beard and sandals say the same thing a couple thousand years ago?

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*Caution*  If you believe that there is only one “right” way of thinking about life and spirituality, you may be offended by or otherwise become upset with the remainder of this post. All
others feel free to read on.

Several years ago I read the book Conversations With God by Neale Donald Walsh. Mr. Walsh grew up in a Catholic environment, left it behind, and after a sequence of less than optimal life events was inspired to write a series of books based on what he understands to be his “Conversations with God”. Having also grown up in a Christian environment and coming to question a lot of the same things that he did, the book was one of my initial stepping stones into a greater understanding of life and spirituality.

My Perceptual Shift

Starting with Neale’s book and continuing over a span of about two years I underwent a radical perceptual shift in my beliefs. I moved from the perspective of there being only one “right” way of looking at things (my religion) to lamenting the time and energy I had spent on that religion and perceiving the folly of religion in general. Today I am of the opinion that we are each here having this life experience for our own unique purpose and that organized religion fulfills that role well for some and not for others.  Personally, I am not one of them.

My Current Beliefs

I believe that to judge, condemn, criticize, or think less of others because of the belief systems they hold is akin to looking at them through a set of distorted glasses. Attempting to judge another’s limited perspective of reality through our own limited perspective of reality often proves to be nothing more than folly.

That being said, I do believe that each of us should stand for something. We shouldn’t all be Pollyanna. Note: that’s 2 should/should not statments in the same paragraph from a person that doesn’t normally believe in using such terminology and recommends against it in coaching. I do recognize however, that these are purely my own shoulds and should nots and I am happy with the limitations I self impose by using them.

I believe that if you perceive a particular religion’s beliefs or practices to be harmful to you or your children you are entitled to speak out accordingly and react nonviolently. The rest of humanity can make their own decisions and doesn’t need you to “save” them. Conversely, if you believe that your version of religion or spirituality has merit, you have the right (at least here in the USA and pretty much anywhere on the net) to speak up and say so. Go ahead and grab the soapbox. That’s what I’m doing right now. But don’t get mad when others choose not to believe, or worse yet, think yourself any better for having discovered “THE TRUTH”.

My Truth?  I personally believe that we each create our own experiences in this life, that our spirits are eternal, and that there is no “hell”, no external “judgment” and no “72 virgins” awaiting us when we get done.  I believe that we all originate from the same divine source from which there is no beginning and no end. I believe that thoughts are things and that everything is energy and a part of divine consciousness. I also believe very strongly in the concept of personal responsibility.

Why This Post?

The reason for this post? It was probably long overdue. It started when I found some notes that I had made when reading Mr. Walsh’s book which I have included below. These were, if you will, some of my earliest “Conversations With Source” and were written down while I was home having breakfast a few years back. I decided to share them because after not seeing or thinking about them for awhile, they still hold a large measure of what I perceive to be “truth”. Weather or not you agree is something for you to decide. You can label the responses as being from “God”, “intuition”, “source”, “Universal Mind”, the “field of pure potentiality” or your late Uncle Ted. To me it doesn’t matter. I consider the responses to be from the Divine Source of all things to which I am inseparably connected.

The Conversation:

How real are this counter top and this bowl of cereal?

As real as they need to be to serve your purpose here.

Why is everything coming together so clearly for me now?

Because you have chosen it to.

So much of what I want to ask, I begin to “know” in the process of asking.

Wonderful isn’t it. And that is how it “should” be.

Does this mean I’m getting close to achieving “mastery”?

As you define it, yes. And who’s definition other than your own is of particular use to you?

I get bored rather easily don’t you think? I have a very short attention span for someone talking to God, don’t you think?

You are a product of all your creations to date. This is who you have chosen to be.

And if I don’t like a particular manifestation of who I am?

Choose differently.

I think I know the answer, but there really is no end to this process of learning and growing, is there?

You have answered yourself well. I have nothing to add to it.

I feel I have just scratched the surface of all of the love and joy and wonder that I am capable of. That I’ve been living for many years as a mere shell of what I can become. Can I really have the kind of life I desire?

That is for you to decide and you only. Everything that has happened to you to this point in this life has its reason for occurring. That reason is you. You have brought these events into existence to make you who you are right now. Yet I can see that the light has “turned on” within you, so to speak, and that you are ready to make real progress towards your soul’s mission.

And what mission is that?

Again, it is whatever you want it to be.

Aren’t we going around is circles here?

You’re the one asking the questions.

I feel as though the main purpose of this world for us is growth, and the biggest growth occurs within relationships.

Good. For you have much growing to do. And I see that you are eager to learn. Be at peace and let the right situations manifest themselves to you. Eliminate your ego as quickly as possible, and don’t limit your blessings to what you can presently see. Force nothing. Love. Be. Accept. When the right situation is at hand you will see it for the true blessing it is.

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