When I woke up this morning The Grasshopper was waiting on my pillow with these words: “If you look at life through a rear view mirror, your biography has already been written.”

Wow! what a time saver. No need to write an auto-biography. Just find someone who was always looking back and read their story; then change their name to yours.

It reminded me of two time tested axioms:

1. If you want to know where you are going, look where you’ve been.
2. If you always do what you always did, you’ll always get what you always got.

When forging ahead, it’s a distraction to be looking back. Reminds me of a story . . .

The other night I took Snuffy the Black Nosed Beagle for a late evening walk. Just as we walked out the door, there was a rabbit sitting in the middle of our front lawn. I figured Snuffy would go into howling mode and drag me at lightning speed to chase after it. He didn’t. He went onto stealth, stalker mode.

The micro-movement of his muscles was a thing of beauty to watch. He crept closer and closer keeping his laser focus on the bunny in front of him. His patience was admirable. Then it happened. A car came down the side street and he shifted his focus ever so slightly to see the car, and the rabbit took off like a shot. NOW I was being dragged at lightning speed by a howling hound.

Looking back can only give you perspective, not a directive. It can tell you what not to do, not what to do.

Looking forward is a discipline, one that requires that your focus stays on what’s in front of you.

Every time you look back, you take your eye off the ball and strike out in the wrong direction.

If you are looking to write a different auto-biography, your back story is irrelevant. Your front page headline has to be in BIG, BOLD type and read: LOOKING FORWARD!

I don’t have a step-by-step strategy to offer, only a suggestion: Focus on what’s right in front of you. This will give you the presence of mind to stop looking back and letting your prey get away.

All the best,

John

ACCOMPLISH ANYTHING
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

Are you due for a software update? If you have a computer, you are reminded to perform that function regularly.

As humans, I believe we have software updates confused with wholesale change, so we avoid them. Updates are more subtle than that.

We are not required to change our operating system, just make some adjustments to it so it performs better.

I’m pretty certain this confusion is why diets don’t work long term. People look on dieting as making a wholesale change. They go along with that idea for awhile until a part of them rebels and then they go back to their old sluggish operating system.

I haven’t met the person yet who has changed operating systems; I have met many people who have made successful software updates to that system.

So how do we perform a software update?

Actually, the update happens, in the background, without us knowing how; we just have to begin the process.

So what’s the beginning step?

Warning: It’s a difficult but life changing one.

That first step is recognizing that our way doesn’t work.

That seems simple on the surface but you would be astonished how often we avoid noticing.

We are so invested in who we are that we have difficulty seeing that one of our comfortable, conditioned routines is a dead end. That routine has become a revered part of us, even though it’s lying on the couch and out of work.

If you intentionally put someone under stress, they will show you their patterned way of doing things. They revert back to the old operating system time and again with the same results they got last time – none – and they don’t notice.

When you are stressed, it’s important to notice what you resist. Recognizing what we resist is the starting point to update our way that doesn’t work.

Legendary psychiatrist, Carl Jung reminded us: “What you resist, persists.”

If you’ve ever lost money in the stock market, you have a finer appreciation of this resistance dynamic. It goes something like this: You invest in a stock that you believe in. it has its initial ups and downs, but then the downs start to take over. At this stress point, we resist getting out. We reassure ourselves that the market is going through a correction and we’ll be back up in no time. It continues to drop. We continue to resist. We keep assuring ourselves it will turn around. (By the way, it’s the same mind set many use when losing at a casino). Finally, the stock is in absolute free fall and we remain in denial that our way isn’t working.

Bottom line: We lose.

We’ve resisted taking a look at what we resist. We resisted noticing that our way wasn’t working.

Once you feel resistance, that’s your opportunity to notice. The software update of recognition separates the losing action from who we think we are, so that it can be evaluated on its own merit. As long as our way of doing things is married to who we are, we will continue making losing bets.

It takes courage to notice that a life-long pattern that we’ve heavily invested in isn’t working.

It’s that act of inspection that begins the update.

What are you heavily invested in that’s not working? What are you resisting with every ounce of your ego? Notice it. That’s when your update will begin and, before too long, your operating system will run smoothly again.

Are you in need of a software update? Here’s an easy way to tell: If you are losing a lot more than you’re winning, your way isn’t working. You’d be wise to recognize.

All the best,

John

ACCOMPLISH ANYTHING
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

One of the great things about learning is that you get to experience all different sorts of teachers. Each one has a style unique to them.

I have had the good fortune of being exposed to a few teachers that weren’t in the mainstream. They had messages to convey that weren’t conventional, yet extremely powerful.

But even among these gifted teachers, there was a distinction worth noting. You learned from them or you learned by being in their presence. Let me explain.

Most teachers fall into the category of people you learn things from. They have a style, technique or formula to impart. This is a valuable method. We follow their instructions and learn to do what they’re teaching.

Then there is the rare teacher that has nothing to teach other than to get you to learn.

The word “Educate” comes from the Latin word, “Educare” which literally means to bring out. It’s the rare teacher that will get you to a place where you can tap in to your resources and bring out something you didn’t know you had.

They perform this magic by being present. They set aside any agenda they may have about you and are just there with you. I like to call it teaching without judging.

These special people know you have something worthwhile to learn and they’re smart enough to know they can’t teach it to you. Their main gift is leading you to a place where you can learn it yourself.

If you’ve ever read a passage from a book that just stopped your stream of thinking for a moment and gave you a sense of knowing, you have experienced this type of learning.

Any teaching that stops your thinking is a pathway to learning. Think back on something you saw that was so beautiful that it took your breath away. That moment of breathlessness was a moment of learning.

All teachers aren’t people. We can learn from anything – a flower, a mountain, a landscape, an animal or an inanimate object. We just have to be present with it and we will learn.

Presence leads to learning. The teacher who is present learns as much as the student he/she’s leading. The funny thing is neither one of them knows where specifically they are going or what they will learn. They only know they will discover something new and worthwhile by being present.

Presence takes practice. It begins by noticing the stream of thought going on in your head while attempting to teach or learn. Each time we take the time to notice our stream of thought, we slow it down, until it eventually becomes a trickle. That’s when we become present – when there isn’t an agenda or syllabus in the way. That’s when we learn and that’s when we lead others to a place of learning.

If there is one thing worth learning, it’s learning to be present.

All the best,

John

ACCOMPLISH ANYTHING
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 am being drawn to draw a distinction between “Complete” and “Completed.”

The first distinction is that we are all complete. That means we have all we need to be whole right now.

The second distinction is that we have uncompleted missions that help us discover that we are already complete.

It’s one thing to say we’re complete; it’s another thing to know it without reservation.

Knowing we are complete takes a bit of completeness boot camp.

There are certain things that need to be completed before we know we are complete.

Here is a partial list:

1. Know you are not your thoughts.
2. Know you are deeper than anything you claim to be.
3. Stop arguing for your limitations.

The biggest obstacle to uncovering our completeness is divorcing ourselves from the thoughts in our head. That doesn’t mean eradicating and not visiting with those thoughts; it just means to live in separate houses now, just like you did before you were married.

At one time, we had no thoughts in our head, yet we were perfectly functioning human beings, albeit a bit smaller and smellier. Then we collected a bunch of thoughts and concepts that started to shape who we have come to believe we are. You are no more your thoughts than you were before you had them. Who were you before you had thoughts? You were complete.

Thinking is a wonderful thing; we just aren’t the things we think about. We are separate and apart from those thoughts.

Finding the depth beneath your thoughts will have you lay claim to a new identity – one that doesn’t have parameters shaped by thoughts. You can think from now until the time that you can no longer think and never figure out who you are. That task takes an absence of thinking. You can’t think your way to being complete.

We need a time out from our thinking in order to discover our depth, our completeness. To reshape a phrase from the orange growers: “A day without mind calming is a day without sunshine.” Find a way to calm your mind and make it a daily ritual. It helps you complete your path to completeness.

Finally, stop telling people who you aren’t. That’s just another way of attempting to be your thoughts. Even when you define yourself as not being something, you limit yourself by being that label. Thoughts about who you aren’t, are thought about limitation, which just keep you in the thinking mode and incomplete.

Above is a list of things to complete, and when you do, you’ll have three less things to think about and know you are complete.

All the best,

John

ACCOMPLISH ANYTHING
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

Walking around with an open wound invites infection. Ask any physician.

Emotional wounds are the same. Close them or they will infect your life as long as you draw breath.

Some people walk around with open wounds for years, decades and even for a lifetime. They never consider stitches.

It got me to wondering.

What causes a person to keep that wound open?

I’m sure there are many answers but here is one that pops for me: They want their hurt acknowledged.

They don’t necessarily want you to fix it, but they want you to acknowledge the depth of their wound and how badly it hurts.

Until they get acknowledgement regarding their pain, their life is an open sore and it infects everything they do.

In the past, I would judge people harshly who constantly walked around with open wounds. It seemed like a lot of drama to me. I didn’t get the acknowledgement piece until I became wounded.

I couldn’t close the wound. Everyone was helpful with advice on how to close the wound, but none offered acknowledgement of how badly I was hurting.

Then I discovered the salve didn’t have to come from others to begin the healing process. Acknowledgement had to come from me.

It’s one thing to know you’re angry, frustrated, dissatisfied or unhappy; it’s an entirely different process to acknowledge hurt. You can be all of the aforementioned things in your head; you can only acknowledge hurt in your body.

Feeling your hurt, without discussing it in your head, is the overlooked way to suture an open wound.

You can talk about your hurt forever without ever addressing it.

If you’re wounded and want to heal, you have to be willing to feel.

That doesn’t mean to talk to yourself or others ad nauseam about your feelings; it means to engage your feelings silently. Feel them in your body.

I’ve written on this topic many times and each time I do, I’m reminded of the healing power of feel.

It’s not easy to do, but highly effective. It’s the storm before the calm.

Acknowledgement can begin at any time and now is always the best time to close the wound.

All the best,

John

ACCOMPLISH ANYTHING
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

Here are just a few notable quotes on what we say and what we do:

French writer Michel de Montaigne: “Saying is one thing and doing is another.”

Saint Francis of Assisi: “Preach the gospel at all times; use words if necessary.”

Confucius: “I hear and I forget. I see and I remember. I do and I understand.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson: “Who you are speaks so loudly I can’t hear what you are saying.”

Here’s a little poetic question from The Grasshopper: “How often do we attempt to get away with what we say and remain in glue about what we do?”

There is enough food for thought here to chew on for the entire weekend.

So let’s not talk about a picnic. Let’s have one.

All the best,

John

P.S. I would like to pay tribute, on Father’s Day Weekend, to my departed father who was a world-class doer of stated deeds.

ACCOMPLISH ANYTHING
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

Here’s a sobering reality The Grasshopper presented yesterday: “Many of our beliefs are misinformation etched in stone.”

It’s somewhat challenging to one’s ego that much of what we believe cannot be substantiated and/or is downright inaccurate.

Do you have a good luck charm or a lucky ritual? If you ever investigated the amount of good luck they have brought you, you’d trade them in for new models – ones that work equally inefficiently.

You would truly be amazed at the number of times St. Christopher has fallen asleep during a traffic accident, or how un-holey your lucky golf socks are.

Most of the misinformation that forms our beliefs got in there by accident. That means they were someone else’s beliefs handed down from generation to generation to us without any vetting being done.

They are the commandments we live our life by.

So how does misinformation etched in stone go away?

Erosion is one method, but that can take more lifetimes than a Hindu has.

Again, it’s recognition to the rescue. Recognition of misinformation is like sandblasting your stone tablet of beliefs, giving you a clean slate.

Here’s an interesting phenomenon associated with beliefs that are jam packed with misinformation: Sometimes they give us hope. Forget for a moment that it’s false hope. This hope got us over humps that we couldn’t have scaled without it. Hope can get us to a point where our emotions are less unpacked allowing us to take on the job of recognizing what doesn’t work.

Some people aren’t ready for the reality of recognition yet. It’s too scary for them. They need to hope a little more that what they believe in will come true. Once in a blue moon they get lucky; most often they suffer.

“The unexamined life is not worth living” is a piece of wisdom left to us by Socrates. He could have just as easily substituted the word “Belief” for “Life” and the message would be just as powerful.

Examination leads to recognition of misinformation, and it is our saving grace.

If your hope is working overtime and not getting compensated, it may be time to change jobs. I hear recognition is hiring.

All the best,

John

ACCOMPLISH ANYTHING
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 may sound odd to you, but the opposite of losing for me is not winning.

It used to be until I examined it more closely.

Winning and losing are culturally joined at the hip, which means they seem as though are the only two options on the continuum. They’re not.

In the past, winning for me was about being right, and as The Grasshopper reminded us many moons ago, continually staking your claim to being right leaves you left out.

The opposite of losing for me is getting through. That’s my win.

Getting through is not getting people to see it my way. That would be too much like being right.

Getting through is getting them to see that their way isn’t working. Getting through to yourself also follows the same guideline.

It’s amazing to me the number of times we retreat back to a position that doesn’t work. We have a history of our way not working, yet we cling to that rock as though it’s a life preserver.

There is something eerily comfortable about that which doesn’t work. That’s why getting through is so hard.

My livelihood depends on me being able to get through. It’s what I make an effort to do. I attempt to lead people to paths away from their grooved path, often called a rut. I don’t offer step-by-step instructions because that suggests there is a right direction to go. What I find is this: Once people finally discover their ingrained ways won’t work, they find their own path.

There are some people you and I will never get through to. Again, it’s not selling them on our position, but rather having them notice that their position is on shaky ground.

That ground shake makes them feel alive. It’s why they are unsettled. It’s as though they have to stick themselves with pins to prove they exist. Their main problem is that the pain has become all too familiar, so getting through it is highly unlikely.

They cannot shed being right, even though right feels so wrong. Their win is a loss.

If winning is the only goal, losing will be your destiny.

One thing I know to be true, we all lose when we can’t get through.

All the best,

John

ACCOMPLISH ANYTHING
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

“Some deals are not offered to some customers,” so said The Grasshopper this morning.

It reminded me of a story . . .

Yesterday I was in Borders Books waiting in line at the information desk to see where they moved the Photography section. This annoying woman came to the front of the line and started asking the man at the desk, who was assisting another customer, if she could get an additional discount on an already, on sale item because the cardboard box it came in was ripped in places. The merchandise inside was fine but the box, which likely would be discarded upon opening, was ripped.

The man told her the merchandise was fine and there was no additional discount. It was a clearance item. This did not stop her from butting up in line, but also continuing with her pitch. She said it looked awful and there should be an additional discount. The man said he wasn’t authorized to lower the price. That would have been it for most folks, but not this person. She continued, “You couldn’t knock off an additional 10%?” The clerk then said, “O.K., I can take off another 10%, but only 10.”

How many morals can you come up with for this story? The squeaky wheel gets the grease? Annoying customers will not be denied? Pushy people will always be pushy?

I had a different take away. Some people won’t get offers that others receive because they don’t ask.

You may argue as I did that there is a better way of asking, but you can’t argue with the results. She was going home with her Burt’s Bees Balm, saving an additional 10%.

So why don’t we ask?

We’re afraid about how we’ll be perceived and/or assume that the answer will be “No.”

Years ago, I learned something from Jerry Stocking that has stuck with me since. He said, “You can ask anything of anyone if you’re not invested in what their answer has to be.”

It’s the investment in the answer that keeps us from asking. We would be better served being invested in the question.

I’ve written before that I’m not a big proponent of hinting. It certainly has its place, but its batting average is in the basement when compared to asking. Asking has deeper applications than getting discounts at Borders. It applies to every area of our lives.

Here’s a recommendation for today and beyond: Ask and ask often. It will get you access to offers others will never receive.

All the best,

John

ACCOMPLISH ANYTHING
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 two words have been occupying space in my head for some time now and seem to be begging for some sort of explanation. I have no idea where this will go, so let me explore them.

There seems to be a correlation between predictable and predictability. One seems more fact based and the other more like a weatherman – hit and miss.

The correlation goes like this: Seasons are predictable but the predictability of early June being this hot on the east coast isn’t.

But it gets more complicated when you’re not talking about the weather.

For example: Human nature is predictable; but the predictability of a specific storm isn’t.

I’m always sadly amused when someone tries to explain why someone did something awful, like a mass shooting. When we see the back story on the individual, most of us could have predicted they were an accident waiting to happen, but the predictability of when they would self destruct is a guessing game, like the weather.

You may have a better guessing mechanism than others when it comes to predicting future events that are unpredictable, but even you get the unexpected wind blowing in your face.

So what’s the best use of predictable and predictability?

When you have the recognition that something is about to happen but you don’t know when, that’s the time to plan for contingencies.

Life insurance is one of those plans. You know you’re going to go, but not when.

Planning for contingencies will never happen when we buy into the illusion that predictable events will only happen to other people. It’s a game of denial we all play to some degree. When you see dark clouds on the horizon, that’s time to seek shelter, not bet against the odds.

When we don’t consider contingencies, we are at the mercy of the elements.

This applies to all areas of our lives – family, business, careers, relationships, etc.

The great musical poet, Bob Dylan wrote these words: “You don’t need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows.”

We are all pretty adept at predicting the predictable, but we come up short preparing contingencies.

The old advice is pretty apt here: If it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, you would be well served to have a plan to duck, especially if these wild ducks look like they are about to fly overhead and make a deposit on you.

When you hope against hope, you hang yourself with your own rope.

If contingency is currently not in your dictionary, may I highly recommend that you buy an up-to-date volume. That way, you become like a savvy sailor and can move out of harm’s way no matter which way the wind blows.

All the best,

John

ACCOMPLISH ANYTHING
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