There is a difference between being nosey and being curious. One leads to the land of “None of Your Business” and the other lights a path to new learning.

Nosey is putting your attention where it’s not welcome; curious has an open door policy.

Curious leads you to wondering about options that will move you forward; nosey just takes you back to the landfill for another pile of dirt.

Curiosity will solve more dilemmas than nosey will ever sniff.

Curiosity leads to creativity; nosey just confirms what you already believe.

To that end, I have compiled a group of quotes that will get you curious. They’re FREE!

So as not to overload you with curiosity, I’ve arranged for one new quote that gets you curious to be delivered to your email inbox each weekday.

These quotes are thought starters, just a few words of perspective to reflect on.

Unlike the quotes that People Magazine or The National Enquirer dish out, these quotes will take you inward. They’re all about you and what you can do.

It’s easy to sign up for them. Just go to the home page of http://johnmorganseminars.com and fill in your email address in the space provided, and you’re on your way to getting a quote that will get you curious each weekday.

It’s not my intention to be nosey, but I’m wondering how soon you’ll be curious enough to sign up for “Quotes That Get You Curious.”

All the best,

John

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I believe the art of persuasion is not getting someone to do something they don’t want, but, rather, getting them to do something they do want to do.

Persuading someone through coercion will always have consequences, but softly nudging them where they want to go pays mutual dividends.

I just saw a great example of this in an episode of Live From Daryl’s House that I just watched.

Singer, songwriter, Daryl Hall
of Hall and Oates fame has a show online where he invites legendary performers into his home studio and they jam. He was hosting one of his, and my boyhood idols, Smokey Robinson.

The story goes that Hall wanted to sing “Ooh Baby Baby” with Smokey (a lifelong dream), but for whatever reason Smokey said he didn’t want to sing that song. A personal aside: I believe that’s tantamount to not wanting to sing the praises of one of your children. Apparently, Hall felt the same way. Watch the link below as he “persuades” Smokey to sing the duet.

http://www.livefromdarylshouse.com/currentep.html?ep_id=53

If you’re successful in getting someone to do what they don’t want to do, you will experience buyer’s remorse.

If you’re successful in getting them to do what they do want to do, the harmony you help create is the most artful use of persuasion.

Nudging someone in the direction you both want to go is my definition of “Persuasion.”

How do you know if you’re persuading or coercing? It’s simple: If your only outcome is to get someone to do your bidding, it’s coercion. “My way or the highway” comes to mind.

It’s persuasion when you sense that there is subtle consent that will lead to mutual benefit. If you misread the subtle consent, a stop sign will present itself. If you choose to go through it, you’ll be ticketed for coercion.

Learning the art of persuasion begins by not attempting to force something down someone’s throat.

All the best,

John

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The Grasshopper had a bon mot today. He said, “Reality doesn’t have any wiggle room.”

Have you ever noticed how much equivocation is in an answer that requires only a “Yes” or “No”?

We have all experienced a “To the best of my recollection” response and intuitively know it’s a “Cover your donkey” answer.

We look for wiggle room where none exists. We attempt to manufacture wiggle room every day on questions that only require a Yea” or “Nay.”

How refreshing would it be to get an unwiggled answer?

Straight answers may not give you the response you were looking for but they are filled with actionable data – information you can trust that doesn’t keep you wandering around in the dark.

“Maybe” is a wiggle room answer and creates false hope.

“Yes,” “No” or “I don’t know” will save everyone lots of time and aggravation.

“Yes” and “No” are self-explanatory. “I don’t know,” if it’s a statement of fact, lets you and others know you haven’t arrived at “Yes’ or “No” yet.

“Wiggle Room” may be a great name for an establishment that employs pole dancers, but used as a strategy in life, it will keep you dancing around the facts and avoiding reality.

The name itself, “Wiggle Room,” suggests you are not on firm footing and it’s not a great way to firm up an answer.

Wiggling isn’t going to go away, but each time you wiggle, know this: You are looking to delay that which you will eventually answer with a “Yea” or “Nay.”

Shorten the storm by training yourself to say “Yes” or “No” and lighten the load of carrying something forward that can be dealt with now.

“Yes” and “No” are some of the first words we ever learned. What we have forgotten, over time, is how effective they can be, because if we lead others to assume, it makes a donkey out of you and me.

All the best,

John

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If we believe our cultural conditioning – and we do – we are led to believe that life is out there somewhere.

The Grasshopper paid a weekend visit and left me with this: “Out there can’t compare.”

If you catalog your most life-filled moments, they weren’t out there.

It wasn’t the cultural promise that brought that burst of life through you; it was something closer to home.

“Out there” can provide a collection of “Nice times” and fun filled moments, but they lack the fullness of “In here.”

We seem to be on a lifelong quest for the Holy Grail and we think we’re going to find it in a Monty Python movie.

“In here” isn’t a cultural event; it’s a sense of peace that can’t be found in the hubbub of “Out there.”

We keep looking out there in hopes that our conditioning was correct. That has the same odds of finding a plot in a direct-to-video Steven Seagal movie.

We keep piecing “Out there” moments together hoping they will fill in the missing puzzle pieces in our life, until we come to the realization that “Out there can’t compare.”

If you are left feeling anti-climatic in your hunt for life, chances are you are looking “Out there.”

“Out there” will have you pursue the rainbow filled horizon, just as a dog will chase its tail. The only difference is the dog has sense enough to stop.

Take time to review your “real moments” in life and find out they weren’t about any glitz or the false promise of tomorrow. There was a sense of “In here” about them.

I wish you Godspeed on your journey and hope you find your share of good times and good fortune. What I pray for is that you discover “In Here” and find out for yourself that “Out there can’t compare.”

All the best,

John

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The Grasshopper reminded me this morning to have an “In between” day.

I had to wonder about that for a bit and here’s what I came up with:

Today is in between where you came from and where you are going. It’s the only place where any activity can take place because, today, you can’t act in the past or future. You can only act now.

So have an “In between day” today and every day!

All the best,

John

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What makes you, you?

If we’re all animated by the same exact life force, what makes us different?

We can point to a lot of surface things like the way we look and behave, but that doesn’t totally explain the one, unique thing that makes us individually different.

The Grasshopper answered my query when he said, “The light that shines from you is a particular hue.”

That color of light is what makes you, you.

The life/light force that animates us is the same, but it’s as though it’s shone through an individual prism that displays our internal light differently on the surface.

This light is deeper than personality. Personality, temperament, attitudes are all surface qualities. This light comes from a deeper place and it’s refracted differently through each one of us.

When we miss someone who goes out of our life, what are we truly missing? We miss their light – their unique hue that will never be replicated again.

The best of you is the light that shines through. It’s uniquely you, and no one who comes before or after you will display the same hue.

If you want to celebrate something, celebrate your hue. No one else can display it like you.

But before you get a broken arm patting yourself on the back, remember that you had nothing to do with this particular hue shining through. It was a gift given to only you.

The only way we occlude that light is by crowding it out with all sorts of surface modifiers. This blockage is usually the result of us attempting to be someone who we are not.

We are not our personality, our prejudices, our beliefs or our thinking. We are our light.

Recognize the light in you and others and make every effort to experience their hue. It will get you past the surface, and their depth will be in full view.

When you look for the light in everyone around you, what you will see is what the famed Psychiatrist/Hypnotherapist, Dr. Milton Erickson discovered – that every blade of grass is a different shade of green.

All the best,

John

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Have you ever felt that you were typecast? Me too!

It’s as though everyone knows you for the role you’ve been playing for years, but you want to break out and play a new character.

It’s as though we are The Ugly Duckling desiring to play the Black Swan. No one will take us seriously.

We make assorted efforts to break out of our role, but are met with rejection after rejection.

“You can’t do that because people won’t accept you in another role” is what we hear.

And we mainly hear it from ourselves.

Whatever our role – Mother, Father, Indian Chief – it once wasn’t who we are.

It’s a role we’ve learned to play and, truth be told, we’re damn good at it.

Along the way, we’ve convinced ourselves it is others holding us back from playing a new role, but if you look past the veil of circumstance, you’ll see the only person holding you back is you.

The main glue holding you in place is the IDEA of who you are.

Who we are is deeper than any single idea we have become. We are a giant cauldron of undreamed ideas and we can change into any of them quicker than Clark Kent becomes Superman.

Remember this: “I have no choice” is a choice.

We block our creativity when we buy into “our idea” being the only idea. It’s not. It’s one of many – too many to count.

Start getting comfortable with the idea that the role you are playing is only an idea. Once you have that realization, other possibilities begin to show themselves.

Our IDEA of who we are acts as a set of blinders to ever-present possibilities.

I’ll leave this idea with an old, anonymous quote.

“The only thing you have to give up to get what you want is the IDEA that you can’t have it.”

All the best,

John

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The Grasshopper was showing his relevance this morning when he said, “What you believe is irrelevant to reality.”

Which of the following statements do you believe?

Nuclear power is safe.

Nuclear power is unsafe.

Your belief is irrelevant to what’s happening in Japan. That’s a reality impervious to your belief about it.

Your beliefs may turn out to be accurate on a particular topic, but their track record is paltry in matching up with reality with any regularity.

It’s an amazing feat to witness when we find ourselves defending our beliefs when there is an avalanche of evidence they aren’t working.

What is it that you believe that isn’t working for you?

Just look at what you profess that hasn’t born any fruit. Did you add the word “Yet” to that last sentence? You can believe it until the cows come home but the reality is you “Don’t Got Milk.”

Beliefs aren’t going away, so it’s in our best interest to manage them.

Just like with kitchen junk drawers, you have to clean them out from time to time. That takes some decision making and action on our part. It’s a two step process.

1. Recognize what beliefs just aren’t working for you.

2. Get rid of them.

Believe it or not, Step 1 is the harder of the two.

Recognizing what you believe isn’t working meets with lots of resistance. Denial is the main adversary you will encounter when assessing a belief for the trash heap. Your beliefs will kick and scream to remain relevant. It’s not that their argument is persuasive; it’s just non-stop. They will wear you down more often than they will convince you.

It’s the reason we don’t clean the overcrowded attic, basement, closet or crawl space. The fun house mirror logic goes like this: “You may need that lei your parents brought back from Hawaii in case you ever have a luau party.” The resistance keeps inertia in place. Your beliefs count on that.

It’s a hard admission to make that our beliefs are irrelevant, but look at the evidence.

Once you have full recognition of a belief that’s not working, it’s much easier to outgrow it because Step two automatically activates when your beliefs are seen in the light of day.

Reality doesn’t care what you believe because your beliefs have no bearing on what it offers up.

If you’d like to get better at recognizing reality, give up your belief that you know what’s going to happen next – then you’ll find out what really happens. Now that’s something you can believe in.

All the best,

John

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Here’s a question to ponder: “Can I ask of you something I’m unwilling to do?”

My answer is “Yes” if I’m paying you, otherwise it’s an inequity.

Life isn’t fair so we will experience lots of inequity, so how do we do our part to stop contributing to the collective pot?

Stopping begins when you notice you have started something.

You can begin by recognizing that you’ve started expecting things from others that you are unwilling to give them.

That produces inequity and inequity causes friction.

There is always a push-pull with another. This activity acts to bring us back towards balance. It’s a dynamic process that works rather well, until we expect to get without giving.

Consider the serial cheater. This is a person who has had multiple liaisons while married to another. Notice their reaction when they find out their mate has cheated but once. FRICTION!

They were unwilling to give loyalty but expect it in unequal measure from another.

I can’t ask of you that which I’m unwilling to do and truly expect cooperation. That relationship will come unglued and inequity will be at the center of the feud.

If you just went off in your head and counted the number of times inequity has happened to you, you have missed the lesson.

The lesson we can all pay more attention to is the answer we get to this question: “What is it I’m expecting from you that I’m unwilling to do?”

All the best,

John

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The Grasshopper was up early this morning and had this to say: “You won’t succeed if you’re unwilling to fail.”

It seems life is a risky business where most of us are unwilling to take necessary risks.

Risk lives on a continuum between Evel Knievil and Shrinking Violet, and with all those choices we seem to hang out at Caspar Milquetoast‘s house.

I’ll admit risk taking was easier when I was younger, but with each passing year I get filled with more failure to fear.

That’s why we don’t risk; we are afraid of fear.

“Please God let me feel anything but fear.”

We’re born with fear; we’ll die with fear, yet we do rain dances to avoid something that’s with us as often as our thoughts.

Fear is a feeling we would be better served to embrace more often. It follows us around like a shadow so it only makes sense to stop and share a cool drink together.

Unwilling to fail is unwilling to fear. The success rate of that strategy is a failure.

I can’t tell you what I’m about to say next is true, but it sure feels that way.

It seems that the thing we fear most is not the thing we ascribe our fear to, but to the ridicule we envision encountering should we fail.

Ridicule is a fear worse than death.

So let’s play this out. We’re unwilling to risk because we’re unwilling to fail because we don’t want to feel the fear of what other people may think.

Here’s the hidden piece we don’t see: What people think of you will be the same whether you succeed or fail. Their mind was made up a long time ago, so avoiding something to escape their ridicule won’t change what they already think.

As my teacher, Dr. Dave Dobson used to say, “The ripe fruit is on the skinny branches.”

The only question left is: Are you willing to risk the fear of ridicule to get the luscious fruit?

And before you answer, consider this: The person whose ridicule you fear probably has you typecast as a rotten apple already.

Happy picking!

All the best,

John

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