I’m old enough to remember when many holidays were celebrated on the day of the week they landed on, rather than on a Monday. Such is my memory of Columbus Day – October 12th.

I also remember two jokes that came with Columbus Day:

1. Have you ever had the Columbus Day cocktail? Two of these and you discover a whole new world.
2. Columbus actually had 4 ships – The Nina, The Pinta, The Santa Maria and The Murray. The reason you never heard of The Murray is because it sailed over the edge.

But Columbus Day really reminds me of a personal discovery I made some 20 years ago. It dawned on me that discoveries were really “Uncoveries.”

What you discovered was always there, just not in plain view. It was covered over.

What covers what’s there to discover? Blinding knowledge that we know all there is to know.

Knowing covers over what’s yet to be uncovered.

When you know, you stop looking. And when you stop looking, you are covered in the stench of superiority which is a dead giveaway that you know it all.

The Grasshopper reminded us that, “When you know, you cease to grow.”

What is that you’re laying claim to knowing about that’s preventing you from uncovering a new discovery?

It’s a powerful question that will lead you to your own uncoveries. You just have to ask it and follow it where it leads.

I invite you to view the following video that clearly demonstrates the type of knowing that deters discovery and how adamantly we defend what we claim to know.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=By-ohi3vO2w

All the best,

John

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It’s harder than it looks when you know how, and it takes lots of work to make it look easy.

What are you really good at? It’s OK to blow your horn; no one is going to hear your response – just us chickens.

The fact is that you are good at something and you make it look easy.

Look at any cooking show or home improvement show on TV. They make it look easy. The degree of difficulty becomes apparent when we attempt to replace the toilet or serve that soufflé.

You can credit your impetus to start the project to enthusiasm but more often than not, it’s a lack of appreciation.

We often don’t give ourselves or others the proper due for the ability to make something look easy.

If I were handy, I would write a best-selling book of instruction called, “There’s No Such Thing as a 5 Minutes Job” because there isn’t.

Hard things are not easy; proficient people just make it look that way, and that includes you.

The real message here is that self-appreciation seems to be in short supply for many people and it makes their lives harder.

It’s not that we don’t have it; it’s in our toolbox, but we don’t use it enough.

I love self deprecation in a person, but when it becomes their lifestyle, they begin to lack appreciation for their developed skill set and marginalize it, rather than use it to their best advantage.

When you don’t appreciate your own skills, you communicate a lack of skill, which is never the case.

Take a look at what you’re good at and look for ways to let that skill ooze out.

It will make life easier and it will be harder for people not to appreciate you.

All the best,

John

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For a deity so worshiped around the world, “God” is a polarizing term.

The polar opposites go from “My God” to “No God,” with some form of “Our God” taking up the middle ground.

I have a neutral position that I feel most can agree with that will put the concept of God in a new light.

Most everyone, including extreme fundamentalists and atheists, will admit to having “Gut Feelings.”

It’s that instant, unmistakable sense that something does or doesn’t pass the sniff test. It’s the proverbial OK/Not OK sensation that we all have experience with.

Let’s call that sense “Gut.” You can still call it “God” if you want to.

Gut hits us with an absence of logic because it’s not a mind phenomenon or mental construct; it’s a feeling.

The rub is that we pollute this feeling with mental debate after we receive it. Our intellect doesn’t trust what our gut is impressing upon us because it’s not in logical, thought form – the only thing it can understand. So our gut feeling becomes watered down with intellectual compromise that keeps us in Limbo.

Your gut, like what we hear about God, looks out for you 24/7 even when you are sleeping. Reminds me of questions I ask at my seminars . . .

I will inquire if there are any mothers in the group and hands will be raised. I ask them if they know when their children are lying and most of them say, “Yes.” I then ask them how they know. They rarely answer with a specific like, “They cock their head to one side when they lie.” The answer is more often, “I just get a feeling.”

Next, I ask, “How many of you mothers can sleep through a thunderstorm?” and several hands go up. I then ask those mothers if they ever heard their child softly sobbing in another room, through closed doors, in the middle of a loud thunderstorm that they traditionally sleep through. Invariable the answer is “Yes.”

What woke them up? A gut feeling!

My suggestion is to cultivate and catalog that feeling and not be so atheistic or oppositional when it visits you. By taking time to notice these sensations when they first arrive, you will be conditioning yourself to know what gut feeling are and begin to trust them.

Gut is non-denominational. It’s a God everyone can worship without having to give up your current belief system, because there is no belief necessary; you only have to feel.

My sense is that “My Gut Is My God” is not going to be a big selling Successories poster, but it’s a notion worth checking out – with your gut.

All the best,

John

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“Where” is one of the famous “W” words – Who, What, Where, When and Why.

“Where” suggest location. “Where are you going?” or “Where are my car keys?”

In the spiritual realm, there is no such thing as location. There is a part of you that can’t be located but is ever present. How’s that for a conundrum?

“Where is that part?” is a question subject to unending debate because there is no logical answer. That must mean that part doesn’t exist if it can’t be physically located as logicians would insist.

That piece of logical wisdom ignores that Chinese Medicine has been alleviating pain for thousands of years with acupuncture. In acupuncture, the practitioner inserts small needles into meridians along the body that can be illustrated on a chart. The problem is that these meridians cannot be located anywhere in the body, so they must not exist.

“Where is my spirit located?” Is a question that you will never answer, yet this spirit animates your body every day.

Even if you are a dyed-in-the-wool spirit denier, ask yourself this: “Where is my mind located?” When surgeons cut peoples’ heads open, they cannot find a mind, only a brain.

“Where?” is a practical question that engages our curiosity in helping us to determine a location, but again, no one has found the location of curiosity.

“Where?” is a waste of energy when it solely focuses on the location of a part versus usage of that part.

If you spend all your time searching, there’s no time for using. “But if I can’t locate it, how can I use it?” Pretend!

Give your logic a vacation and pretend there is a part of you that can’t be located but is extremely useful. This usage of your imagination (another part that can’t be found) is the source of all creation.

You can only access this part of you when your logical mind calms down and ceases its search. It’s from this part of you that all creativity flows – into a mind that no one can find.

The best answer to a where question I ever heard came from the founder of Transcendental Meditation, Maharishi Mahesh Yogi. He was announcing that he was going to build a new center. A questioner asked where the money would come from. The Maharishi answered, “From wherever it is at the moment.”

We would all be more useful if we take time to remember this: Creativity doesn’t care about where.

All the best,

John

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What’s the difference between beliefs and facts? The amount of evidence!

Isn’t it interesting that there is little evidence for many of the things we believe?

One of the biggest debates we have in the world is between evolution and creationism.

There is more evidence for the theory of evolution, but not enough to make it an absolute fact. That’s why it’s still considered a theory.

This is not an attempt to roil that debate – just a statement of the known evidence.

Here’s what beliefs and facts have in common: They are responsible for contributing to many creations.

For example, engineering marvels are created by assembling available known quantities and creating something new, useful, tangible and totally factual.

Alternately, as mentioned in a previous blog post, Colin Tipping has written in his book Radical Forgiveness,

“. . . it is worth noting that even the most widely accepted theories are based on assumptions for which there is very little hard evidence. For example, did you know that not one shred of evidence exists to support Darwin’s Theory of Evolution? Historically, that theory ranks as one of the biggest assumptions ever made. It serves as the basic assumption behind all biological science and as the very foundation on which much of our accepted scientific truth rests. However, the fact that no evidence exists to prove this assumption true does not mean that the theory is invalid or not useful.”

Even though you can’t totally prove your assumption, doesn’t mean that it can’t spur creations that are factually undeniable.

So rather than argue the superiority of either beliefs or facts, agree that both positions are capable of creating unbelievable things.

You only need to read the incredible story of the loving mother who brought her dead infant back to life to keep the power of your beliefs alive.

Facts are facts and beliefs are beliefs, and both are worth believing in. And that’s a fact!

All the best,

John

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