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Daily read 17, we are finishing up on Awaken The Giant Within, today will be the last chapter and its on Identity : the key to expansion! Hope you guys enjoyed the book as much as i do. Tomorrow i will be sharing another awesome book! So stay tuned! Do drop a feedback in the comment section if there is another book you wish for me to share! So here will be the 10 points for today!

1. what we can or cannot do, what we consider possible or impossible, is rarely a function of our true capability. It is more likely a function of our beliefs about who we are. If you ever told yourself “I could never do that” or “i am just not that kind of person” then you have run up against the barriers of limited identity.

2. The beliefs that we use to define our own individuality, what makes us unique, good, bad or indifferent from other individuals. And our sense of certainty about who we are creates the boundaries and limits within which we live.

3. If you feel that you are not an outgoing, outrageous person, you will tap the resources of behaviors that match your identity. Wheather you see yourself as a wimp or a wild man, a winner or a wallflower your will instantly shape which capabilities you access.

4. Time and again researchers have shown that students capabilities are powerfully impacted by the identities they develop for themselves as the result of teachers belief in their level of intelligence. Studies shown, a kid is labeled as gifted by the teacher, these children will normally be the top achievers in their class. Even those who have previously been labeled as poor student.

5. We all will act consistently with our views of who we truly are, whether that view is accurate or not. The reason is that one of the strongest forces in human organism is the need for consistency.

6. A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of small minds. – Ralph Waldo Emerson

7. We all have a need for a sense of certainty. Most people have tremendous fear of the unknown. Uncertainty implies the potential of having pain strike us.

8. Valijean stole the priest silver wares even thou the priest helped him out when he was in trouble. When being caught by the police Valijean was brought back to the priest. The priest said Valjean didn’t stole the silverware but it was a gift from the priest and he actually missed out 2 silver candlesticks. Why would the priest believe in Valjean? The priest said, he was his brother, that Valjean no longer belonged to evil, that he was an honest man and a child of God. This massive pattern interrupt changes Valjean’s identity.

9. So who are you really?

10. Are you a millionaire? A you a happy person? A you someone who empower people? Are you someone who think you are fat? Or Are you someone who think i am a healthy person?  Many people have given themselves the identity that they are a fat person. Its not the fat that make them fat but the identity they stick to believing that they are fat that causes them to stay that way. So Who are you really?

I think, therefore i am – Rene Descartes 

Hope you taken something out to use from this 10 points today! Stay Charged Be Cool You are Awesome!

As always if you need the book you can always click the link below so i can earn some affiliates $! Cheers!

“Man’s mind stretched to a new idea never goes back to its original dimensions.” -Oliver Wendell Holmes

Here are the 10 points to take away from todays daily read on Anthony Robbins : Awaken The Giant Within Chapter 17 :  References : The Fabric Of Life.

Point 1 : If we want to understand why people do what they do, a review of the most significant and impactful reference experiences of their lives certainly can gives us clue. Just like saddam hussein who had been abused by this father and how his uncle teach him to nurture a grudge and to hate the English “overlords.” that causes him to be who he is. However in life, its not our references, but our interpretations of them, the way we organise them that clearly determine our beliefs.

Point 2 : References are all experiences of your life that you have recorded within your nervous system, everything you have ever seen, heard, touched, tasted, or smelled. stored away in our giant brain. Some we pick up consciously, some unconsciously. The power to using your references is to organise your references in an empowering way. The way we use our references will determine how we feel, because whether something is good or bad is all based on what you are comparing it to. 

Point 3 : Sony when they just started was once made an offer for 10 times the value of the company. For their $10,000 company Bulova offered them $100,000. However the offer was rejected, he told them “Fifty years from now, my company’s name will be as big as yours.” Many people thought Sony was crazy not to accept that offer. How was he able to create this sense of certainty that enabled him to turn down such an enticing and profitable offer? He vividly imagined the future of his company, and created references where none existed. 

Point 4 : You want to learn from your past, not live in it, focus on the things that empower you. What if Thomas Edison had given up after his first failed attempt to make the electric light bulb or even the 100th attempts or 1000th attempts. Luckily for us, he could had taken each instance as a reference to back up a belief that his invention was a failure and it is not feasible. Instead, he chose to use each failed attempt as a reference for the belief that he was getting closer to the solution.

Point 5 : Reading is feeding your mind. Read a book, go to seminars, meet people, listen to audio tapes, poetry, myths, stories and get new ideas. All references have power, and you never know which one could change your entire life.

Point 6 : I used to believe that going to see a play was a waste of time. Why? Because the only plays i had ever attended were poorly acted and the pace was painfully slow. Until one day they decided to go for the Les Miserables, it was one of the best show he ever watch and since then he become addicted to great theater! “Imagination is more important than knowledge” – Albert Einstein

Point 7 : There are no bad experiences, whether its a challenging experience or a pleasurable one, every experience provides me something of value if i look for it. if i pull just one idea or distinction from an experience, then it expands me.

Point 8 : “It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye.” – Antonie De Saint Exupery

Point 9 : I will never get over them; I will always have pain. Been broken in a relationship? You are absolutely right, as long as you hold on to the belief that you have been taken advantage of, or that you have lost something that can never be returned, you will indeed always have the pain. Just remember, Loss is imaginary. Nothing ever disappears in the universe ; it only changes form.

Point 10 : We live in a galaxy that contains several hundred thousand million stars. Then realise that we live in a universe that has several hundred thousand million galaxies. In other words, there are several hundred thousands million suns in our galaxy alone. And all of these suns have planets revolving around them as well. Think of the magnitude. The stars in our galaxy make one turn around the milky way axis only once every several hundred million years. When you compare it to the life span of us human (80 years max on average) The human life span is but a speck in time. And yet people worry themselves to death about things like how they’re going to pay the mortgage, what kind of car they drive, or how their next business meeting will go.

If you enjoy this 10 points today, i believe you will love the book you can grab a copy at the link below! May the force be with you!

Ever wonder why you are not happy? How some one can be happy and why you are not? Are they expecting lesser in life so they are easily contented and therefore they are more happy? Is this really the truth?

There was this perfect place for people to watch the eclipse and many had paid a huge amount of money just to be at this special spot for this once in a lifetime experience for the 4 minutes eclipse. By 7:10am the clouds had increased and were getting larger by the minute. Suddenly, the sun broke through a hole in cloud, and a partial eclipse was seen. The crowd greeted it with excited applause, but soon it was covered by the clouds. It became obvious that we wouldn’t be able to watch the moon overtake the sun. Then the large crowd of people rush over to the Big Screen set that on of the TV crew erected. There we sat watching the eclipse on national television. Everyone at that moment reacted differently. The situation that all of us face is the same. Some said “I spend $4,000 and traveled all this way, just so i could watch this for four minutes on television?” a few feet away “i can’t believe we missed it! with the daughter reminding her “But, Mum, it’s happening right now!” Some “Isn’t this incredible?” “I feel so lucky to be here!”

The ironic thing of all was that within fifteen to twenty minutes, the trade winds had cleared all the clouds from the sky. It was now blue and clear, and the eclipse was revealed. However many has when back to their room, feeling disappointed and they continued to give themselves the sensations of pain because their expectation has not been met.

People would get so excited and emotional about something like the eclipse which is merely a four minute shadow. If you really think about it, it’s no more of a miracle than the sun coming up each morning! Can you imagine if every morning people from all over the world got up early so they could watch the sun come up? And be really excited and happy about life? Imagine if the CNN opened every broadcast with, “Good morning, once again, the miracle has happened- the sun has risen!” Could we? You bet we could!

What has to happen in order for us to feel good? Do you need to be hug? kiss? or make love to in order for you to feel good? Do you have to run 5 miles a day so you can feel good? What really has to happen in order for you to feel good? The truth is that nothing has to happen in order for you to feel good! You can feel good right now for absolutely no reason whatsoever!As long as we structure our lives in a way where our happiness is dependent upon something we cannot control, then we will experience pain. We can always decide to enjoy the event no matter what happened. It wasn’t that we didn’t have expectations, its was that we decided that no matter what happened, we will find a way to enjoy it. To adopt this rule is to raise your standards. It means you have to hold yourself to a higher standard of enjoying yourself despite the conditions of the moment.

Rules that we give ourself determine if we will be happy or not. Like for example, many people will have a different answer to “Do you have a great body?” A set of criteria will be trigger that you believe constitutes to having a great body. How do you know if the other person love you. You will also have your own set of believe.

Like if he loves me he will never raise his voice at me or if you love me then you will do whatever i want you to do. Or if you love me then i can whine and nag and complain and you should just accept it. Does this sounds familiar? Are these appropriate rules? Hardly! They would be unfair to anyone you were sharing a relationship with. One woman who attended date with destiny really wanted to have a close relationship with a man. However she has rules that disempower her. First she need a guy who will pursue her constantly even thou she rejected them. Second rule is if he kept on for more than a month, she will lose her respect and therefore her attraction to him. Sometimes the rules that we give ourself stop us from getting what we want and we can’t seem to understand why. And you thought you only want to be love and you can’t get it so there is a lot of pain.

Understand your mind, we can be happy, we can be sad. Make your choice and take charge!

 

Reading thru this chapter really opens up a lot on my thinking of how many people failed in their relationships. We often couldn’t see thru the upset and anger of why our other half is actually behaving this way without judging them. So we can immediately reconnect with who they really are. 

Just an example, if your spouse is feeling pressure from work, and is venting his or her frustration, it doesn’t mean that your marriage is over, but it’s a sign to be more attentive and to put your focus on supporting this person you love. After all, you wouldn’t judge the stock market based solely on one day when the dow-joes average plunges twenty points. By the same token, you can’t judge a person’s character by one isolated incident. People are not their behaviors.

There are 5 elements that demonstrates how our master system of evaluation works.

First is the state we are in while we are making an evaluation. There are times in life when somebody can say one thing to you and it will make you cry, while other times the same comment makes you laugh. What’s the difference? When you are in a fearful state, very little sound can scare the shit out of you. One key to make superior evaluations is to ensure we are in a resourceful state of mind and emotion rather than in a survival mode.

Second is the questions we ask. What determines whether you ask someone out for a date? Your evaluations are deeply affected by the specific questions you ask yourself as you consider approaching this person. If you ask yourself a question like “wouldn’t it be great to get to know this person?” as compared to “what if they reject me?” “What if i get hurt?” then of course these will lead you through a set of evaluations that results in passing up the opportunity to connect with someone you are truly interested in.

Third will be our hierarchy of values. Each of us throughout our lives has learned to value certain emotions more than others. We all want to feel good. We want pleasure and avoid pain. But our life experience has taught each of us what equals pain and what equals pleasure. This can be found in our guidance system of our values. For example, one person may have learned to link pleasure to the idea of feeling secure, while someone else may have linked pain to the same idea because their family’s obsession with security caused them never to experience a sense of freedom. Some people want to succeed but they avoid rejection at all cost. Conflict value like this can cause someone to feel frustrated or immobilized.

Fourth is Beliefs, Some people have the belief that if you love me, you will never raise your voice at me. This rule will cause this person to evaluate a raised voice as evidence that there is no love in the relationship. This rule may have no basis in fact, but the rule will dominate the evaluation and therefore that person’s perceptions and experience of what’s true. Other such global belief can be “if you are successful, then you make millions of dollars” or “if you are a good parent, then you never have a conflict with your children”

Fifth is reference experiences that is in our brain. Is it bad compared to the worst situation you have ever heard of? You have unlimited references you can use in making any decision. References shapes our beliefs and value. If you grew up in an environment where you felt you were consistently being taken advantage of as opposed to growing up feeling unconditionally loved how might this color your beliefs and values the way you looked at life or people or opportunity. I have seen people with broken home growing up believing that love doesn’t exist and they doubt every relationship that they have. Worried that their partner will cheat them.

“Men are wise in proportion, not to their experience, but to their capacity for experience.” – George Bernard Shaw

We must remember that, I am the source of all my emotions. Nothing and no one can change how i feel except me. If i find myself in reaction to anything. I can change it in a moment.”

“Take away the cause, and the effect ceases.” – Miguel De Cervantes”

There is a story of a man, who walk pass a river and he heard a woman calling for help, drowning in a dangerous river. He leaps in, and pull the drowning lady to safety. As he is still catching his breath, he hears another 2 person drowning in the river, back he when into the river to save the other 2. Before he get a chance to think, he hears four more people calling for help! Pretty soon the man is exhausted, having rescued victim after victim, and yet the screams continue. If only he had taken the time to travel a short distance up river, he could have discovered who was throwing all those people in the water in the first place! He could have save all his effort by addressing the problem at its causes rather than its effect.

Hope you find your true self today and always focus on the cause and not the effect.

If you wish to get the book here is the link!

If you have been following to this daily read 12, you might realise that this book encourages us to take lots of action. Its not just a book on theory and inspirational story. Today we are at chapter 13 : The Ten-Day Mental Challenge

The same thinking that we are using right now has gotten us to where we are but it will not get us to where we wanna be. Biggest problem that most of us have is that we resist change, we have gotta so far with this set of behaviour. Its is true, however a new level of thinking is now required in order to experience a new level of personal and professional success.

Tony also got caught up in a pattern of frustration and anger years ago. Every where he turn to he sees a problem. Thinking positivity is not high on his solution, because being “intelligent” means don’t make things look positive when they aren’t. However in reality, being negative makes things seem worse than they were. Tony was using pessimism as a shield. Protecting himself from pain of failed expectations. However this protection that shield him from pain also shield him from pleasure.

Life is a balance, if we are too positive and ignore the weed in our garden, the weed will still be there. The main idea is to note a weed with a smile, cause you spotted the weed and now you can immediately go and remove them. Weeds are part of our life, we need to see them and acknowledge that they there. Pretending that they are not there will not make things better, neither will becoming inflamed with anger. Weed will always be part of the garden, we can choose to remove it happily or we will be upset for the rest of our life.

So who wanna join me to be happy for the rest of our life? I will be doing a 10 days mental cleanse as stated in the book and lets be accountable to each other! The rule for the 10 day mental challenge will be :

1. In the next 10 consecutive days, refuse to dwell on any unresourceful thoughts or feelings, refuse to indulge in any disempowering questions or devitalizing vocabulary or metaphors.
2. When you catch yourself beginning to focus on the negative and you certainly will, you are to immediately use the techniques you have learned to redirect our focus towards a better emotional state.
3. For the next 10 days our focus will be on solution and not on the problems. The minute you see a possible challenge, immediately focus on the solution.
4. if you find yourself backsliding, its okay don’t beat yourself up and indulge in the unresourceful thought or feeling. Wait until the next morning and restart the 10 days over again.

We first make our habits, and then our habits make us. – John Dryden

Leaders are reader, so read everyday for at least 30min, miss a meal but never miss 30 min reading a day. So in this 10 days, pick up the habit of reading everyday. This book is about decision and you can decide what kind of future and emotional state you want to be in. So take charge! Connect with me via facebook or you can drop me a email at info@heechai.com on your progress for the 10 days mental challenge!

10 days, if you have followed for 10 days congrats to you! A big pat on the back for myself too! It has been really tough these days to hit the 1 hour of reading and 30min to do up this post as i have been really busy with the shop and other projects as well. Time is precious, so less whining and more reading! So today we are at chapter 11 of Awaken The Giant Within by Anthony Robbins.

The story of a man name Walt. Walt is a good decent human who tries to do the right thing. He has his life down to science. Everything is in proper place. He wakes exactly at 630am, shower and shaves, drink some coffee and he is out for work at 715am and he will reach his office at 8am. Where he sits there and does the same job for 20 years.

5pm he goes home, and watch TV. An hour later the wife comes home and they will decide what leftover to eat or to throw a pizza into a mircowave. After dinner he watches the news where the wife wash up and kid and put him to sleep. Walt and his wife has been married for 3 years, he won’t describe their relationship as inflamed with passion, “it’s comfortable”

Do you know some one like walt? Maybe he is someone we know intimately. Someone who never suffers the depths of utter devastation or despondency but also never get to experience the heights of passion and joy. Many of us live a life of quiet desperation, afraid of feeling pain but quietly wanted to feel more alive, more passionate and get our heart pumping again. Often we will feel helpless and we find that we are unable to control what we feel. And many turn to external help to avoid certain emotions. They will turn to drugs, alcohol, overeating, gambling in hoping to lose those depressing feeling.

We have 4 basic ways to deal with emotions. 1 avoidance, we want to avoid painful emotions, so we avoid any situation that could lead to painful emotions. Some fear rejection and they avoid any situation that could lead to rejection. They shy away from relationship for example. They don’t apply for challenging job. And in the end they are unable to feel the very love, intimacy and connection they we most desire.

2 Denial, we often say to certain emotions that we have that, its not that bad. However on the inside they keep thinking how bad things are and how someone has taken advantage of them or how they do everything right but still turn out wrong. Experiencing a emotion and pretending its not there will only amplify it even bigger, it will amplify till its big enough for you to notice it.

3 Competition, Many of us stop fighting the emotions we had and we fully indulge in them and goes into a competition with other people and take it as some unique and begin to pride themselves on being worse off than anyone else. This is the worst way to deal of our painful emotions.

4 Learning and Using, if we want to make life work, we need to make our emotions work for us. The emotions that we once thought of as negative are actually a call to action. Every painful emotion we can call them Action Signals! Its tells us its time to move! Or you need to do something now!

6 Steps to Emotional Mastery

Step one : Identify what you’re really feeling, instead of being overwhelmed by all the pain you are feeling. Step back and ask yourself what are you really feeling? Are you really angry or are you just feeling hurt. Or are you feeling you lost out of something. Realise that feeling hurt and feeling lost out on something is not as intense as feeling angry!

Step two : Acknowledge and Appreciate your emotions, knowing they support you. Your emotions are here not to hurt you but to serve you as a warning. Even if you don’t know about your emotions now, just trust that your emotions are here to guide you and support you, appreciate all emotion you are feeling and you will find that you will calm down almost immediately.

Step three : Get curious about the message this emotion is offering you. Getting curious will help you master the emotion and it will be easier for you to deal with it if you face it again.

Step four : Get Confident, Remember a time where you have successfully handled a similar emotion and feel confident that you have handled it before.

Step Five : Get certain you can handle this not only today, but in the future as well. Simply by remembering that you handled this situation or emotion before and rehearse handling the situation where this Action Signal would come up in the future. See and hear yourself handling this situation easily.

Step Six : Get excited and take action. The best time to handle the emotion is when the Monster is still little. Get excited and deal with it.

We can feel all the different emotions inside our the good and the bad. Learn how to deal with it and do more things that will fill ourself with the good emotions. Like love, contribution, and many more. I hope you will not be restricted by your emotions and fear of failure and live a life in “comfort” Life is a adventure, you only got 1 life you can make full use of it or let it make full use of you.

The book that changes my life. Get yours today from amazon!

What are metaphors you might ask. As explained in the book If X is like Y, and we understand X, suddenly we understand Y. If for example someone tries to explain electricity to you by throwing around the terms “ohms”, “amperes,” “wattage,” and “resistors,” chances are it will totally confuse us. But what if he explained it by drawing a pipe, and there is water flowing thru it. There is a little flap that could slow water going thru the pipe, That little flap is what a resistor does in an electrical unit. Instantly we will know what a resistor is. So this is consider a metaphor. A metaphor can empower us by expanding and enriching our life however it can also place limiting belief if we are not careful.

Remembering the raging CEO we were talking about yesterday? He had a global metaphor that they were in a box and someone is having a gun on his head. Do you think he will react intensely if you believe you are trapped in a situation like this? So what tony does to break this CEO metaphor is by asking questions. He asked what color is the squirt gun? In order to answer this question he has to focus on the squirt gun and this switch in focus will break his internal focus. If i kept repeating don’t think of the color blue, what color are you going to think of? The answer, obviously, is blue. And whatever you think about, you feel.

Often people might say i am feeling the world is on my shoulder, you can also break their metaphor by saying set the world down and move on. Or if people say i am hitting a wall, you can tell them to jump over the wall or dig a hole thru. Some people will say I am feeling stuck. You can say you are never stuck, you may be feeling a little frustrated, you may not have a clear answer, but you are not stuck.

Some people of metaphor that life is a war, what will that bring to that persons life? That person might be thinking “its going to be me against everybody else.” “Its a dog eat dog world” If life is a battle then i am going to get hurt. What if Life is a game, you might think that there will always be a winner and a loser there will never be win win situation. Or you might think that life might be fun. Mother teresa’s metaphor for life is that its sacred. What if you believe life is a gift? Changing one of our global believe can immediately change the way we feel about life.

In a seminar, there is a woman who keeps complaining about everything things that happen. Its too cold, its too hot, she is upset of the person infront of her because he was too tall. So tony asked her what is her believe about life. She said “I guess I just believe that small leaks sink the ship.” If you thought you are going to drown all the time wouldn’t you go crazy about finding every little leaks.

A metaphor about yourself can make a big difference as well. Like if you believe that you are a teacher, a speaker, a therapist, a national best seller author or a Coach. Tony tested these out and every single word brings a very different meaning on how he sees things. So what kind of metaphors are you putting on yourself? Are you just a employee, business owner or a student?

You can put a metaphor on your love one as well. By calling certain names on your husband as “that jerk” that asshole” “old hag” “prince of darkness” or you can also call them “love of my life” “soul mate” ” team mates” what do you think it will change in your relationship?

When face with problem do you people often think of the metaphor that this problem is going to go on forever. However you can also look at it the other way. Life has its seasons. And now with the problem its just winter. Winter will go by and Spring will follow then the sun will be out. The sun comes out and we won’t freeze to death!

The metaphor about life is also a really cool one. One day Tony’s son came home and feeling really sad because his friend die. So Tony told him a metaphor of the caterpillar before turning into a butterfly will have to wraps itself up into a cocoon and everyone would have thought that the caterpillar is dead. If you cut open the cocoon it will be just some mashy white stuff. But after a few days what will the cocoon be? The son replied, butterfly will come out! So now is the caterpillar more free or less free? The son replied more free! Tony said “I think your friend has wings now!”

Hope these short example can let you know more about how a simple metaphor is actually affecting our life. May these small changes bring you a happier and more fulfilling life.