I glommed onto the obvious yesterday. If you want better answers, ask better questions.

It seems the quality of the question has a bearing on the quality of the answer. If you ask a superficial question, there’s a good chance you’ll get a shallow answer. The converse is accurate as well: If you ask a deeper question, you’ll receive a deeper response.

The burden of quality is on the questioner. That’s because the answer will rarely go deeper than the question.

“Hinters” ask lousy questions. If you want to witness people who rarely get what they want, hang around with people who hint a lot.

Hinting is a poor, and often cowardly, practice.

The junior high dance is the best example of not getting what you want because you don’t ask. If you hint, you get to watch the person you want to dance with waltz across the floor with someone who asked.

The salesman who asks, eats; and the better their questions, the more money they make.

One of the things I learned from Jerry Stocking is: You can ask anything of anyone, if you’re not invested in what their answer has to be.

Once you get over the fear of asking, then it’s time to work on the quality of your questions.

A quality question doesn’t have a hint of hedging in it. Ask for what you want. Yes, there is a sense of timing involved. For example, if you decide you’ve met the person of your dreams after the first date, you don’t ask their mother when you first meet her if you can call her “Mom.”

A quality question is not a BS question. That means don’t ask a question you already know the answer to (unless you’re a trial attorney). That will only deliver something you already know and does nothing in getting you better answers. Even kids can sense when there is a BS question.

A quality question is most often one that’s not rehearsed. That means that once you get out of your head and into the communication process with another, you ask questions from a deeper place. The back and forth becomes an intimate, fluid dance rather than a stilted, step-by-step toe stomper, and trusted answers are the result.

A quality question is a specific request for action or information.

This is by no means an all inclusive list; there are many more ways of asking better questions. This is more of a reminder to ask and ask often, and to become more aware of your asking style.

I wonder how soon you’ll ask for better answers.

All the best,

John

LOSE WEIGHT & KEEP IT OFF
STOP SMOKING FOREVER
SLEEP THROUGH THE NIGHT EVERY NIGHT
IMPROVE YOUR SELF CONFIDENCE
I LOVE MY BODY
RELAX IN 2 MINUTES
FEEL FOREVER YOUNG
VIRTUAL MASSAGE

How much do you embrace the unexpected?

I’m willing to wager that the percentage is rather small. That’s because we have a larger love affair with the expected.

If you graph it, you’ll see that you give more of your attention to the expected.

My guess is that our filter of expectation is a powerful, shaping force in how we view life. The often quoted Abraham Lincoln line comes to mind: “Most people are about as happy as they make up their minds to be.”

That’s another way of saying they are nurturing and fulfilling their expectations, positive or negative.

What you expect to happen usually happens. It’s only when it doesn’t go according to expectation that we come to a choice point.

it’s truly in our best interest to pay extra attention when our expectations don’t happen, and take steps to wrap our arms around the unexpected.

When the unexpected grabs more of your attention, that’s when you begin to move off a predictable course.

The unexpected is an agent of change.

How many things have you accomplished in life that would never have happened, if you didn’t accept the unexpected?

We all have turning points we can look back on that were catalysts to move us in a new direction. If you take a more careful look, that curve in the road was unexpected.

It’s what we do with the unexpected that will shape our future, not lamenting that we didn’t get what we expected.

We all get daily doses of the unexpected. I just don’t think we yet recognize how valuable these experiences are.

You really can’t expect the unexpected, but you can pay more attention to it when it does show up. It’s what you do next that will determine your future. That bold step is to embrace the unexpected.

All the best,

John

LOSE WEIGHT & KEEP IT OFF
STOP SMOKING FOREVER
SLEEP THROUGH THE NIGHT EVERY NIGHT
IMPROVE YOUR SELF CONFIDENCE
I LOVE MY BODY
RELAX IN 2 MINUTES
FEEL FOREVER YOUNG
VIRTUAL MASSAGE

In the past, one of life’s biggest challenges for me has been getting past the past. I don’t think I’m alone.

The past takes on a life of its own, especially when we keep it on life support.

We are attempting to keep alive that which is dead.

Memory is the main force that helps keep the illusion of the past alive.

The faulty thinking goes like this: if I can remember it, it still exists.

The truth is, if you can remember it, your memory of it still exists – nothing else.

The practical advice that is presented to star-crossed lovers – you can’t live on love – applies doubly when you substitute the word “Memories” for “Love.”

The reasons diets don’t work is because people cannot go the rest of their lives eating less food than their body needs. Similarly, when you dine from a menu of memories, you are always starving.

You starve by refusing to eat what the present moment presents. You opt for the illusional calories of the past which cannot sustain life, and cause a slow, painful death.

Your current state of affairs is your life – not what happened 20 minutes or 20 years ago. When you lose sight of that fact, you’ll have trouble getting past the past.

Getting past the past requires that you notice the present. Sometimes it takes a logical kick in the pants to get you focused where your life really is. Reminds me of a story I’ve told before . . .

Year ago, I was telling my friend, Paul about a job offer I had received. I was unemployed at the time. After telling him all about the job, I lamented that it didn’t pay the amount of money that I was making before. He surgically struck with the following comment: “It’s more than you’re making now.”

The reality of the present has a way of dissolving the past; we just have to focus on it to get that result.

Remember this: Memories of the past can be delicious; attempting to live on them will cause decay, because you can’t sustain life by attempting to live off the empty calories of yesterday.

All the best,

John

LOSE WEIGHT & KEEP IT OFF
STOP SMOKING FOREVER
SLEEP THROUGH THE NIGHT EVERY NIGHT
IMPROVE YOUR SELF CONFIDENCE
I LOVE MY BODY
RELAX IN 2 MINUTES
FEEL FOREVER YOUNG
VIRTUAL MASSAGE

The Grasshopper delivered an old message from another angle the other day when he said, “Don’t let what you know get in the way of what you can learn.”

How often do we say “No” to new learning by being in the know?

It’s often what we know that keeps us in the dark; not what’s available to learn.

Too frequently, we attempt to make a new concept fit in with something we already know. If we can’t make it fit into our current mold, we judge it as unworkable and dismiss it out of hand.

There often isn’t anything unworkable about the notion, other than it can’t fit into our space.

This isn’t like attempting to fit a size 9 foot into a size 5 shoe; that’s physics.

This is more about making the space you have for new ideas become more elastic.

When we refuse to stretch, we become even more rigid. It’s a basic fact of life.

How do you find out your level of rigidity? Begin to notice what you say “No” to. The longer your list, the stiffer you are.

New concepts require a “Yes.” If “No” is your default answer, you’re either a parent of a rebelling teenager or you are stiffer than a corpse.

I’ve been both and can attest that both can be outgrown.

There aren’t 12 steps – just 2.

1. Notice how often you say “No.”
2. Begin to say “Yes” more often.

“Yes” is the land of opportunity; “No” is a one horse town.

If you want to grow, you have to stop saying “No.”

All the best,

John

LOSE WEIGHT & KEEP IT OFF
STOP SMOKING FOREVER
SLEEP THROUGH THE NIGHT EVERY NIGHT
IMPROVE YOUR SELF CONFIDENCE
I LOVE MY BODY
RELAX IN 2 MINUTES
FEEL FOREVER YOUNG
VIRTUAL MASSAGE

No matter how unique we consider ourselves to be, we are dyed-in-the-wool copy cats. We can’t help it.

Unconscious emulation is popularly known as early learning. It’s “monkey see, monkey do” or “monkey hear, monkey do.”

There is nothing original about that.

The Christian theology of “Original Sin” suggests that we are born into a condition of imperfection. The idea is that we’re perfectly born into an imperfect world. It’s from that imperfect world that we learn our patterns and beliefs.

You have to listen no further than your pattern of speech to validate your unconscious unoriginality. My guess is that if you grew up in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, you have a different accent that the people who grew up in Brooklyn, New York. Your accent got in there by accident without your permission. So did lots of other unoriginal stuff.

Do you exhibit things that your parents did that you consciously swore you would never do? Figures of speech? Mannerisms? Beliefs? This realization usually happens when we become parents. Some unoriginal bon mot leaves our lips and we astonish ourselves when we recognize that, “I said that just like my mother/father/early caregiver.”

That’s when you know that you’re not an original.

So the question becomes: How do we become more original? We have to stop copying, as the nuns used to say to us, “from your neighbor’s paper.”

To change an unoriginal pattern of thought or behavior, you first have to recognize it as a copy. You also have to stop and realize that you got most of your unoriginality through osmosis. It just seeped in insidiously without your knowledge or consent.

Once you have the realization that you are presenting unoriginal ideas and behaviors, you arrive at the threshold of originality.

Each time we recognize our unoriginality, while it’s happening, we cross the threshold and get a little deeper into originality.

Originality doesn’t come from parrots or trained seals.

Originality and creativity are the same concept with different letters. They both come from a place where there are no stored ideas – a void that spawns originality.

The more often you enter that void, the more original you become.

We move from Planet of the Apes to Curious George when we begin to recognize how unoriginal we truly are.

All the best,

John

LOSE WEIGHT & KEEP IT OFF
STOP SMOKING FOREVER
SLEEP THROUGH THE NIGHT EVERY NIGHT
IMPROVE YOUR SELF CONFIDENCE
I LOVE MY BODY
RELAX IN 2 MINUTES
FEEL FOREVER YOUNG
VIRTUAL MASSAGE

It seems kind of silly to say that we wear goggles every day, but we do. They are our windows to the world.

The problem is we don’t know we perceive our world through the prism of goggles because we can’t see them.

Our goggles are our patterns.

You’ve heard the expression “Rose colored glasses”? That’s just assigning a color to someone’s patterns.

We view our world once removed. That means there is reality, and then our perception of it through our goggles.

Patterns are very useful. They help us automate so many behaviors that would be tedious to relearn every time we use them. They are also our biggest stumbling block.

Many patterns keep us from seeing clearly. Think of them as fogged up goggles.

How many times have you had the thought, “I should have seen that coming”? You couldn’t have possibly seen it wearing gunked up goggles.

The way to see more clearly is to inspect your goggles and clean them up from time to time.

Have you ever taken off a pair of sunglasses and noticed how dirty the lenses have gotten without you recognizing it? You may laugh and wonder how you could have possibly seen anything through those things, and then you take the time to clean them. Your world is much clearer after that happens.

What are you not seeing? It may be an opportunity or it may be a pitfall. You won’t see either with bird shit on your goggles.

So the two steps to seeing more clearly are:

1. Recognize you are wearing goggles.
2. Clean them up from time to time.

Recognition is the key to transformation; cleaning the lenses is your guarantee of a brighter future.

Pass the Windex, please.

All the best,

John

LOSE WEIGHT & KEEP IT OFF
STOP SMOKING FOREVER
SLEEP THROUGH THE NIGHT EVERY NIGHT
IMPROVE YOUR SELF CONFIDENCE
I LOVE MY BODY
RELAX IN 2 MINUTES
FEEL FOREVER YOUNG
VIRTUAL MASSAGE

I remember the “Church Lady” character from SNL asking in a derogatory way, “Well, isn’t that special?”

Her intent was to communicate that whatever she was remarking about wasn’t really special.

I heard The Grasshopper say yesterday, “Special is not who we are but what flows through us.”

How often do we get caught up in thinking that we, personally, are special? The most severe cases of special thinking appear when we witness ourselves or someone else speaking in the third person. For example, Bill Smith saying, “Bill Smith always votes in every election.” Bill thinks he’s special. He’s not, and neither are we.

Special is not who you are or what you do; it’s the creative force that flows through you. Now that’s special!

This doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t take credit for your accomplishment. Please take a bow. Just don’t get caught up in thinking that you’re something special.

Pure and simple, we are a vessel for special.

When we think special rules apply to us, we’re caught up in the caste system of special. It smacks of superiority and leads towards separation rather than inclusion. When we believe we are special, we always have a wedge at the ready to put between us and some unwashed denizen of the planet.

The instant thinking is: “I’m not like them,” which is another way of saying “I’m special.”

The best antidote I ever heard for special came from author, Eckhart Tolle. I’ll paraphrase what he said. “If you don’t think you have anything in common with someone, remember this: In “X” number of years you’ll be total equals; you’ll both be rotting corpses.”

If you truly want to be special, look for the specialness we all have in common.

All the best,

John

LOSE WEIGHT & KEEP IT OFF
STOP SMOKING FOREVER
SLEEP THROUGH THE NIGHT EVERY NIGHT
IMPROVE YOUR SELF CONFIDENCE
I LOVE MY BODY
RELAX IN 2 MINUTES
FEEL FOREVER YOUNG
VIRTUAL MASSAGE

“These little town blues are melting away.” So sings Frank Sinatra in New York, New York.

The song is more about new starts than it is about New York. In order for new to begin, old has to melt away.

Sometimes the transition from old to new is abrupt and that can be painful. When the past slowly, but systematically, drips away, the conversion is more permanent.

The area of weight loss is the prime example of how drastic changes rarely last. Most dieters go on a monastic diet, and are successful in rapidly losing weight. They are equally successful in gaining it back. Just monitor the long-term progress of contestants of “The Biggest Loser” or any one of Oprah‘s diets to validate this for yourself.

Melting away the past has better odds of success and it takes longer than most people are willing to wait.

If you snap an icicle, it still exists; it’s just in a different location. When it melts away, its residue finds its way down the drain, and there is much less pain.

We aren’t a very patient people. The systems are in place for us to succeed, but our desire to make change quicker than the system allows has us throw logic out the window.

The answer to “How do I speed up winter so it doesn’t last as long?” is “Move to Florida.”

If you are making a new start, it helps to begin slowly and build on your success at regular intervals. When you apply this method, you get to the dripping point much quicker. This is when a “Snowball’s chance in Hell” is a good thing.

All the best,

John

LOSE WEIGHT & KEEP IT OFF
STOP SMOKING FOREVER
SLEEP THROUGH THE NIGHT EVERY NIGHT
IMPROVE YOUR SELF CONFIDENCE
I LOVE MY BODY
RELAX IN 2 MINUTES
FEEL FOREVER YOUNG
VIRTUAL MASSAGE

We live in a “Gizmo” society. We are bombarded with messages that if we only had a specific gizmo, we’d have the world on a string.

The mentality and marketing is pervasive. What golfer hasn’t bought a new club expecting it to improve his or her game? I can’t tell you the amount of money I’ve spent on photography gear over the years. The hope was that this equipment would make me the next Francesco Scavullo or Ansel Adams. Truth be told, the person at Wal-Mart, shaking the bunny and taking pictures of your children, is more proficient than me.

Reminds me of a story . . .

I remember when my kids were younger and they would ask me for more expensive gizmos, offering up the logic that it would make them better. We lived near a rundown school where an NBA Basketball player had attended. The court at the school was a patchwork quilt of uneven asphalt pieces. I said, “If Ernie “D” could learn to play basketball on that court, you can learn to be better with the current equipment you have.”

A new gizmo will not make you better. It’s always how well you use a gizmo that gets you results.

We have this notion that what we need is outside of ourselves. That’s misplaced credit.

Reminds me of another story . . .

My late mentor, Dr. Dave Dobson, a legendary hypnotherapist, would say, “Everyone is their own best therapist.” He would point out that people would give him credit for the changes they had made never knowing it was them who actually made the change. His claim was that he provided the environment where that change could happen. People giving him credit was misplaced credit. This ability was always within them, yet they ascribed all the accolades to him.

I have a friend who is a “Perpetual Student.” His underlying belief is that he always needs “one more class.” This is one of the most knowledgeable people I know but he has a severe case of “Misplaced Credit.” He thinks the missing piece is out there somewhere. It’s not.

I’m all for seeking help and taking classes; those practices open our eyes and hone our skills. Where the logic falls apart is when we believe that it’s the outside force that will make us better. It isn’t. And when we don’t get the results we want, we go seeking another class or teacher.

Rarely do we just work with what we already have. We don’t give ourselves enough credit. We’re too busy misplacing it.

I don’t think I’m going to stop buying photography equipment anytime soon, but I do know this: I have all the equipment I need right now to develop what I want. I just have to make the time to get more familiar with my current equipment to get picture perfect results.

All the best,

John

LOSE WEIGHT & KEEP IT OFF
STOP SMOKING FOREVER
SLEEP THROUGH THE NIGHT EVERY NIGHT
IMPROVE YOUR SELF CONFIDENCE
I LOVE MY BODY
RELAX IN 2 MINUTES
FEEL FOREVER YOUNG
VIRTUAL MASSAGE

It seems there is a psychology that goes along with either “Past” or “Future.”

The “Past” folks want things the way they were; the “Future” folks want things the way they should be.

There is also a sensation that goes along with each viewpoint, especially when it runs into an opposing view. For the future seekers it’s frustration; for those longing for the past it’s a sense of sadness and madness.

The “Future-ites” are frustrated when they can’t convince others to create a plan that is crystal clear to them. The “Past-ies” are mad that their world is changing and severely dig in their heels.

When you get a “Past” and “Future” together, you can expect an ideological scrimmage. It plays out every day – Old vs. Young, Conservative vs. Liberal, Texter vs. Emailer – the list is ever growing.

The results of the daily clash between the two leads to an argument as to who is right rather than a common strategy to right any wrongs.

The focus is on the fight and who’s right rather than results. It would be like two football teams hurling insults at each other from their respective sidelines for 60 minutes rather than playing the game.

Here is something we rarely reflect on: There is no past or future in now.

“What can I do now?” is a question to ask that brings us back from the frustration or sadness of future or past.

Now gets you focused.

Imagine you’re driving through a major snowstorm. Then imagine one of these two monologues in your head:

“It didn’t used to snow this much, the road crews were out much quicker, and, damn it, people drove more carefully in the snow back then.”

“They should really come up with a way to put warming rods under the asphalt to melt this before it becomes problematic. Why don’t they invent solar powered, snow blowing panels along the side of the highway? How come no one is doing these things?”

You just know these two people are going to crash into each other. Why? Because neither one of them is paying attention to the snow now.

Focusing on now and the situation at hand suspends diversionary trips to the past or future, and doesn’t add the baggage of sadness or frustration.

There will be plenty of time to yearn for the good old days or lament that the future isn’t getting here quick enough, but that time is not now.

Now is the time to focus on what is right in front of you. It’s the quickest route out of the past and into the future.

What can I do now?

All the best,

John

LOSE WEIGHT & KEEP IT OFF
STOP SMOKING FOREVER
SLEEP THROUGH THE NIGHT EVERY NIGHT
IMPROVE YOUR SELF CONFIDENCE
I LOVE MY BODY
RELAX IN 2 MINUTES
FEEL FOREVER YOUNG
VIRTUAL MASSAGE