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Turning Bad into Beautiful

My Fatal Flaw

One of my fatal flaws is that I obsess over negative situations. When something bad happens I have a hard time thinking about anything else. A recent problem put this habit to the test, and thanks to a friend’s wisdom, I discovered the magic of turning bad into beautiful.

Craig Ballantyne

Failure isn’t bad. Failure isn’t final. If there is one thing I know after having observed this crazy world for 36 years, it’s that you can SURVIVE almost anything and come back better and stronger than ever before. Don’t let the fear of failure stop you from achieving the success you deserve.

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By Craig Ballantyne
Late on a Friday afternoon is the worst time to receive an email containing bad news related to business. It leaves you with the entire weekend to think about the problem because it can’t be resolved until everyone returns to work on Monday. Unfortunately, I had this happen to me recently.

Due to a boneheaded decision on my part, a joint venture partner and I had a falling out. I take all the blame. It was entirely my fault.

The email not only voiced their displeasure, but also ominously requested a phone conversation early the next week. Thanks to my inability to compartmentalize negative thoughts I spent the entire weekend with the impending uncomfortable conversation dominating my thoughts.

It’s much like when a catchy tune gets stuck in your head, except this was the stressful, “have-nightmares-about-it” version. I kept running through the phone call over and over again in my mind, trying to figure out how it would go.

There were two things that helped me work my way out of it, and turn bad into good.

First, there was this quote that I read a few days earlier. As this quote says, when you mess up, you are actually being given a chance to learn a lot about yourself.

“Life’s challenges are not supposed to paralyze you, they’re supposed to help you discover who you are.” – Bernice J. Reagon

Second, I have an incredible network of people who can keep me level headed in these situations. After I explained the situation to ETR Publisher Matt Smith, he said something that was both wise and helpful.

“When something in life occurs that is troubling, we are not supposed to dwell on the thing itself. Instead, the focus should be on our obligation to turn this bad thing into something beautiful. It’s not easy. But, if you focus your creative energy away from self torture and onto ‘how you can turn this into something beautiful’ pretty remarkable things start to happen.”

And so over that weekend, as I tried to avoid mentally torturing myself, I discovered something "beautiful." I realized that in order to get through the weekend and to get over the stress, I was re-doubling my efforts at doing good things.

I spent more time in my forums answering questions on a more extensive level than normal. I put more thought and effort into Turbulence Training and ETR articles for the next two weeks. I worked harder on next month’s Turbulence Training workouts for my fitness business.

This “focus on good” elevated me from my bad mood, relieved the pressure, and turned the world positive again.

To make matters even better, my call with the upset joint venture partner turned out to be positive. My apology was accepted, and instead of conflict, we are now in cooperation. I’ve gone from embarrassed to enthusiastic, and look forward to working with this company on future products that will help them and you.

There’s a lesson here for all of us.

When things go bad, double up your efforts on doing good things. It makes you feel better, and may help even the karmic scale. You can turn bad news into something beautiful by taking positive action towards your mission and vision. Live positive.

As Dave Kekich says, “High self-esteem can only come from moral productivity and achievement.” So when things turn bad in business for you, turn them beautiful by taking action, being productive, and improving the lives of your customers and clients.

Hopefully you can take a beautiful message from my bad mistake.

Please also realize that turning something bad into something beautiful is not a fix limited to business. It can be applied to other areas of our life. For example, let’s say you are going through a divorce or loss of love of any kind. Everyone’s been there. We’ve all had bad break-ups.

But understand it’s probably not your fault. Whatever led to that loss of love is their problem, not yours. And so it’s not a time for you to wallow in self-pity, for that will do you no good.

Instead, this is the time to be at your most beautiful. If you’re funny, you shouldn’t hide inside watching reruns of “When Harry Met Sally.” You should get out and get together with your friends who love you for being funny. If you’re a natural born-organizer, you shouldn’t be at home torturing yourself and analyzing what went wrong. Instead you should be organizing a party with all of the people who matter to you and still love you.

Here’s what you need to do to start turning the balance of bad into beautiful. You need to simply take action, get moving, and build some momentum. Taking a walk, a simple stroll in some fresh air, is the easiest way to get started on your road to recovery.

During my tumultuous weekend, what helped me get better were the multiple dog walks out on the farm that I had to do each day with my chocolate lab. The walks allowed me to clear my head and use my creativity to identify solutions to the current issue. In fact, just one of those walks brought me six ideas I could use to fix the mess I had found myself in.

Don’t dwell on the negative. Instead, focus on what you can do to turn the bad into beautiful. As Matt said, flip your creative energy from self-torture to making the mistake into a positive opportunity. When you identify good things that you can do or the benefits of this new life change, remarkable things will happen. Change your perspective and opportunity arises out of the ashes.

You’ll find solutions for your problem. I promise.

That’s not bad.

That’s beautiful.

My Little Black Book

Express Gratitude

According to Eric Barker, author of the popular blog, "Barking Up the Wrong Tree," one of the things that you should do every single day is to express gratitude. And I do. Each night I write in a little black book. It brings me peace and reduces stress from comparing myself to others. As Barker says, it can make you happier and improve your relationships with others. Start today.

Craig Ballantyne
“If you know what matters to you, it’s easier to commit to change. If you can’t identify what matters to you, you won’t know when it’s being threatened. And in my experience, people only change their ways when what they want is truly threatened.” – Marshall Goldsmith

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By Craig Ballantyne
A journey from Toronto to Austin started off on the wrong foot. After finally making it through a long custom’s line, I was selected for secondary security screening. As the agent went through my luggage he eventually stumbled across my little black book – a moleskin notebook I take with me on all my travels.
As he opened it and began thumbing through the pages, I could barely hold back from laughing, despite the gravity of the situation.

There were two reasons this brought a smile to my face. First, my writing is illegible. So much so that even I can’t tell what I’ve written down on those pages.

The second reasons I almost laughed was because the security agent was reading my gratitude journal.

So let me tell you about my little black book of gratitude, and why having one of these will give you a stress-free outlook on life.

My gratitude habit began in 2010 after attending listening to a speaker named Vishin Lakhiani at a marketing seminar. Vishin, the owner of an information marketing company specializing in meditation products, spoke about the methods he used to create one of the best places in the world to work.

Daily gratitude journaling was one.

By nature, I’m a skeptical, slightly curmudgeonly conservative, so the entire idea of expressing daily gratitude, let alone writing in a gratitude journal, was foreign to me.

But I’m no longer a hardheaded 25-year-old graduate student, and the gratitude journal seemed like a fine way to deal with the work and life stress that comes with being an adult. I decided it wouldn’t hurt to give this habit a shot.

Over the past year I’ve deviated slightly from the original method I learned from Vishin, and I’ve cobbled together my own system. In addition, thanks to my business coach Dan Sullivan, I recently added a new element to my gratitude journaling.

But before I get to the exact gratitude plan, I want to share the two best times that I’ve identified for completing your gratitude journal. The first is early in the morning. If you like to start your day with personal time, reflection, exercise, or meditation, then adding gratitude journaling is a good fit.

The second best time is at the end of the day, and it works well for those of us who like to wind down the workday with a reflection on what we’ve accomplished and by looking to the next day as we create our to-do lists.

Of course, there’s nothing to say you can’t do your gratitude journaling at any time during your day. It’s a simple exercise that will benefit you anytime.

I’ve recently moved my gratitude time to the afternoon, because I reserve first thing in the morning for creating newsletters, articles, and products.

But come around 5 p.m., when my chocolate lab Bally is stirred by his empty stomach, I close down my laptop for the day, feed the ol’ pup, update my to-do list, and then grab my Daily Documents for review.

I flip the notebook open to where I have split the page in two vertically. In the left hand column, I list the date followed by 5 rows:

• G:
• O:
• Did:
• Do:
• App:

The pages of my notebook are filled with my chicken-scratch writing that has filled in the space beside each of these notations. Let me explain what each of these are.

• G – Gratitude: Simply, what do I have gratitude for today? If you’re doing this in the morning, it would be, what happened yesterday that made you grateful?
• O – Opportunity: What opportunities do I have in my life that I am looking forward to? These can be work-related or personal.
• Did: What did I do today (or yesterday) that gave me a sense of accomplishment?
• Do:  What will I do tomorrow (or today) that is important?
• App -Appreciate:  Who in my life do I have appreciation for today? It could be a significant other, family member, old friend, business contact, mentor, role model, or yes, even my dog.

As you can see, it’s not a tremendously difficult exercise. It takes almost as much time to split the page in two and write out the categories as it does to fill them in. But that’s just the half of it.

Up until last month, that was the extent of the gratitude exercise. All I had to do was fill in these five lines. But last month, while listening to a Dan Sullivan audio CD, “The Gap," I discovered a neat little addition to this exercise that makes it even more powerful.

Sullivan recommended making a list of 5 things that you achieved that day. These go in the right hand column across from the gratitude categories listed above.

Now I’ll admit, some days I find it tough to identify five achievements worthy of making that list, but the purpose is to remind yourself of the progress you have made and to introduce more celebration into your life.

After all, our world is overwhelmed with negativity. From the news to the attitudes of others, there are too few instances of positivity.

But the gratitude exercise and achievement list allow you little celebrations, and a reminder to feel good about the progress you’ve made.

In addition, I know you’ll find it highly insightful when you reflect on what you write down each day. It’s an excellent exercise for identifying what really matters to you in life.

For example, I’ve only rarely written down anything to do with money (such as “Big sales day” or “Excellent promotion”). Instead, I find myself writing down, “My easy life” several times per week. That’s my default gratitude selection.

Having grown up picking rocks in my dad’s fields every hot, humid summer and opening feedbags with my bare hands in skin-cracking January cold, I’m almost embarrassed by the lack of physical challenge in my life these days. Ironically, the only physical work I do is in my leisure time at the gym, and I PAY to do that. So I’m really grateful my life is easy, and it makes me smile and thankful each time I write that down.

Your default gratitude will likely be much different than mine. It could be gratitude for your children, for the health that you’ve regained after illness, for your faith, for the fact that your parents are still healthy, for a loving relationship with your spouse, or one of many other options.

But I think you’ll find, that just like me, items like money, fast cars, expensive vacations, jewelry, and fancy clothes will rarely – if ever – make your list.

Knowing what you want and identifying what really matters to you, these are the core characteristics of identifying what you need to do to really be happy in life.

Understanding and accepting who you are and what is important to you will guide you to make the right decisions in life and keep you out of a lot of trouble, all while giving you greater calm and clarity about life.

So hopefully you can see how powerful this simple exercise can be for your life.

While I cannot attest to reductions in blood pressure, or increased longevity from gratitude journaling, you’ll certainly find a sense of clarity and proper perspective about what matters in life.

I hope the contents of my little black back stimulate your thinking, encourages you to examine your perspective on the challenges you are facing, and inspires you to have gratitude for all those things in your life – big and small – that make your life so wonderful.

5 Reasons Why YOU Should Speak with a True Guide

1. A True Guide will help you work through your failures. - Success is not a skill; it is a persistent attitude and the Prophet knows this through the Spirit. Before a Prophet lets you quit, he allows you to discover the reason why you held on so long, and in the process, allows you to see all the progress you have made. A prophet can help you turn a failure into a finish.
2. A True Guide removes your fears from making your decisions. - A true prophet of God will cause your faith to return that the Lord has a plan for you, and it's all being revealed in the right timeframe. The prophet will reveal your breakthrough in all your ups and downs and show you that there are really no wrong decisions in life, just choices that will take your life down a totally different path.
3. A True Guide will show you that it is up to you to be happy. - A prophet will remind you that nobody can take away your pain, so don't let anyone take away your happiness. The word of the Lord leaves you with the choice to follow your path to happiness or abandon it altogether.
4. A True Guide will show you how to let go of resentment. - You will only begin to heal and grow when you let go of the past, forgive those who have wronged you, and learn for forgive yourself for your mistakes. Your prophet knows this. The word of the Lord will smooth out the wrinkles of negativity left from yesterday's challenges, tuck the corners of your doubts away, and fluff your belief that every day is a perfect new beginning.
5. A True Guide will cause you to focus on the positive. - A true prophet of God will know that with everything that has happened to you, you can either feel sorry for yourself or treat what has happened as a gift. Everything is either an opportunity to grow or an obstacle to keep you from growing. You get to choose. No matter how far you have traveled or how many failures you have encountered, hope and positivity can still meet you anywhere when you God is speaking a word  of change into your life through the prophet.

How to Slow Down Time With Your Mind

By Enoch Tan / Creator of Secrets of Mind and Reality
Your spirit operates outside time and space. When there is an emergency where danger is about to approach you faster than you can normally sense, your spirit will compell you to act quickly without pondering. It directs you through your instinct and reflexes. Think of a time when you moved out of harm's way in an instant and the move was so spontaneous it seems that everything just flowed in the moment. Your awareness of what was happening and your response happened without hesistation, but so quickly that it was almost together at the same time.

That is because your spirit can observe things and sense reality beyond your ordinary rate and range of awareness. Imagine that a dagger is flying towards you from the side. In ordinary rate of awareness, there is simply not enough time to notice the dagger coming and to move out of the way. But in the realm of your spirit’s awareness, time is slowed down to a crawl and it can fully perceive everything that is happening no matter how quickly. It sends the message to you and in that moment you experience the spontaneous and seemingly simultaneous knowing and action. The awareness comes just before the action but it seems that time slows almost to a standstill during that moment of thought. Perception and action become as one.

If you want to consciously perceive faster so that things don’t seem to happen so quickly, you have to slow time down in your consciousness.
It is not time that slows down but you that slows down. See in your mind’s eye and memory things slowing down. Like a picture frame frozen from a movie in motion. It is the way you experience time slowing down or stopping when you see a beautiful person of your dreams.
It would be an advantage for anyone to stop the world or at least make everything appear to move in slow motion. It would give you time to analyze the situation and the actions of everyone and everything around you. It gives you extra time to determine your actions in a pressure situation. This would would be incredibly useful in business, driving your car in traffic, playing games, military combat, sports and life threatening situations.
Be Fully Alive to This Moment
Perceptive awareness is being fully alert and living fully in the moment. It is seeing the trees bend in the wind and the way the birds circle overhead. It is sensing how the trees feel and what problems and joy the birds are experiencing. It is experiencing the full moment around us and not just our little thoughts. It is clearing the mind of future events and past replayed scenes, so you can experience the entirety of the current moment in time. It is putting yourself in the full frame picture now in front of you in relationship to everything happening around you. It is being fully alive. With that kind of perceptive awareness, a moment can seem to you to last forever.
A master baseball batter is apparently able to slow things down when he’s at the plate. To everyone else, the ball would be rocketing toward the plate at approximately 100 mph, almost faster than the eye can see. But to the focused athlete, the ball seems to slow down just for him, and present itself to him.
This is what many of the best batters have this in common. Somehow, when they need to slow things down to make their big play, they are able to perceive everything happening in slow motion. The ball rolls slowly up to the plate and is easy to see, often appearing larger than life. It’s almost as if the ball is waiting for them to hit it. To everyone else, the ball is racing to the plate at a blistering speed, curving, skinking, and breaking in waysthat make it almost impossible to track, let alone hit.
This is truly time manipulation, since the perception of the person who seems to manage this trick is that time has been stretched longer or made shorter. Since this is the perception of the magician, and becomes the way he acts upon the world, it becomes that person’s own functional reality. It’s really a consciousness shift and an expanded awareness. And yes, it is real magic as we will see.
When playing baseball as a batter, allow yourself to focus consciously on the location and speed of the ball. Clear your mind of all noise and clutter. Get unnecessary thoughts out of your head. Tune out all sound and distraction around you. Simply focus on the baseball being pitched to you. Focus your intent. Imagine hitting it squarely and watching it sail far through the air. Concentrate on your abdomen and visualize projecting energy from this “will center”. You must want to hit the ball and will it to happen. See the ball big and bold. Fixate on the ball. See only the ball and focus your total intent and will on the ball. Did the ball appear to be moving slower than normal? If so, you are well on your way to becoming a master of time manipulation.
For most rapid perception, attention must be at its maximum focus on the area of the thing to be perceived. You must intend to see everything you can in that moment of looking. When you focus only on the thing you are looking at, things surrounding will become dimmer and out of focus while moving in slow motion together with it.
How to Experience Timelessness
To experience timelessness, you need to focus intently on the moment at hand. You cannot allow your mind to wander over events of the past or wallow in deep concern over the future. You must be in the present moment, fully alert and clear headed. In short, you must be totally involved in the “now”.

You must not fear but be calm and have a heightened state of awareness. Fear collapses time. You do not want to collapse time, you want to expand it. Awe is one of the feelings that expands time and slows it down. The opposite is true, things that move in slow motion likeness create a feeling of awe. Fear and awe are very similar and yet very different feelings. Fear causes you to be totally unseeing and blind to the action of the thing you are afraid of in the moment. Awe causes you to be totally seeing and taking in the fullness of what you are looking at.

Scientists have shown that mild anxiety can improve performance in some instances like a 100 meter dash, a musical performance, or even an exam. But for the most part, a full-blown autonomic response is not adaptive in most of these circumstances. These are classic instances of what the Taoists would call getting in your own way.

The ancient Eastern masters from various traditions such as Taoist, Buddhist, Hindu, Zen, Sufi and many others recognized this feature of the human nervous system, and so found antidotes to it. These were awareness and equanimity. They cultivated a calm temperament through meditation and breathing exercises, which you can think of as strengthening the parasympathetic response.

As a result, the Eastern masters were able to develop a very strong and nearly imperturbable presence. Because they were not getting in their own way, in the face of danger they were pure action, maximally effective. This cultivation fed into a hyper-aware state of mind, which, interestingly enough, seems to block out emotion-based responses.
Empathic healers who tranfer energy to others in therapeutic touch reach a level of heightened alertness, which is classified as hyper beta brain activity. This is a state of “superalertness” similar to the keen alertness that Zen masters have been observed to reach in closed-eye meditations. In this state, the healer is acutely focused on one thought or activity, tuning out all peripheral distractions.
You can also heal or comfort yourself in this manner. In this heightened state of consciousness, you can focus on any area of pain or injury and send healing energy to that area in thought forms. Similary, you can use your hands to help or to heal, using your hands to project and conduct that healing energy.
A concentrated mind is not an attentive mind, but a mind that is in the state of awareness can concentrate. Consciousness or awareness is never exclusive, it includes everything. It is not a constricted concentration but a relaxed and free one. When you get into the calm and unperturbed state of mind of conscious awareness, you can perceive easily and nothing can happen too quickly for you. When you are able to slow time down in consciousness, you can use time as the ultimate weapon. Nothing can stop you but you can stop anything. Time is the ultimate illusion. All time is mental.

By using the principle of “it is not time that slows down but you that slows down”, you slow down your actions to slow down the rate of things moving around you in consciousness. Then once you have that increased rate of perception, you can start moving faster again with much greater control and effectiveness. This is the secret of slowing down in order to go faster. Do not hurry because hurry manifests fear and collapses time. Only when you are calm are you able to perceive things in slow motion.

Act as if you have all the time to do everything you want.
Every time you slip up on an action or have a hesitation, it’s because you overlapped a proper sequence of things and it just cancels out in your mind. Maybe it’s because you were in a hurry. Your mind can only do one thing at a time, yet each may be done at the rate of microseconds, giving the illusion of many things at once. If you actually try to do many things at once, nothing happens. We’re referring to the conscious awareness here, although your subconscious can do many things simultaneously. It is your conscious awareness that uses rapid perception in order to slow time down.

Time is an illusion, only consciousness is reality. Who is to say that only a certain amount of things can happen within one second and not more? There are times when people encounter life threatening situation and in the moment, their whole life passed in front of them. As their precious life hung in the balance, for one split second, they took stock of their life, including their loved ones, unfulfilled dreams and unrealized goals and made a momentous decision that saved them in virtually no time at all.

Maybe you experienced moments like this before. It is a state of superconsciousness. Everything seemed to slow down. Things seemed to appear in slow motion. You saw your loved ones and they seemed to be frozen in time. You considered logical arguments and argued them through the steps to completion. All of this takes a long time normally, but for this one instance when you are so sharply focused and alert, you play it all our in one magical moment, a moment that you seemed to control.
You can perceive things in slow motion and still let your thoughts and actions flow at the “same speed”. It is all relativity. To you, time around you slows down but to an outside observer, you become phenomenally precise and in control. When you are able to perceive faster, you also possess the ability to respond faster. Each second of your time becomes stretched and you can have increased rate of movement within it. Your time is increased compared to other people’s. Those watching with normal rate of consciousness will see you moving like flashes of lightning with sudden bolts of speed.
You can also use your mind to increase your own rate of movement to phenomenal levels. Think of yourself moving at extremely high speed that is beyond the ordinary. And act with that mental state. Think speed and you manifest speed. Time manipulation and phenomenally fast movement like all mind powers, require you to be in the right state of consciousness to be of effect.
The best ballplayers, it seems, have learned how to manipulate time whenever it suits them. Perhaps they do this without a great deal of thought or analysis, but they certainly employ all of the key factors of time magicians. They focus their intent, engage their will power, and energize their thought forms. This is personal magic. This is personal power. Everyone can do it. The superstars just do it more easily and more often than the rest of us. We say that they are gifted or superhuman. They are simply focused, intent and willful.
All champions have one thing in common, they have learned to sieze the moment. No matter what situation we are in, there is always a cubic centimeter of chance that appears in the moment for us to accomplish what we want. The trick is to be alert enough to seize the moment and then have enough personal power to execute the appropriate move at the appropriate instance. Impeccable warriors are fully alert and fully aware of the physical world.
Everybody knows that under normal conditions when heroics are not on the line, a person cannot pass a ball through a crowd to a selected teamate who scores, all in less than one second. Under normal circumstances, most people cannot even locate a person in a crowd in less than one second, let alone pass the ball to him. This demonstates over and over again the elasticity of time.
There’s a young swimmer who came out of nowhere at the end of a race to eclipse the field. She always found a way to win, and would “pick her spot” to “make her move.” Still, it seemed uncanny how she could close the big gap between herself and the race lader at the end, when you consider she had to swim nearly twice as fast as she had been swimming throughout the rest of the race.
It’s like the track sprinter who digs down at the end of the race to bolt like a cannon to victory at the end. To the observer, it looks as thought they are running against opponents who are moving in slow motion. How can somebody who’s been running at top speed suddenly double that speed at the end of a race, when they should be the most tired? It’s an obvious display of will power, focused intent, and energized thought power, whereby they conceive of miraculous victory and believe it is possible. And whatever our consciousness can conceive, the body can achieve. Since everything is consciousness, the physical world is only an illusion.
Move Into the "Zone" of Higher Performance
You can cope with daily emergency situations and daily challenges where you need extra time and powers that heightened awareness affords you. You can run faster in less time and slow down events when needed by altering your perception of time and space. Some of the greatest athletes do it. Heroic rescue teams do it. You can do it too.
You can meditate anywhere and reach a state of heightened consciousness and timelessness. Surely, star athletes in action do not stop everything that they are doing to sit down in perfect posture and slowly number their bodies to enter this state. They have learned to do it within the flow of events. They pop in and out of this state, as needed. They do it quickly and almost effortlessly with practice. It becomes a learned behavior. Soon your total self will sense the opportunity or need and shift you to that new, higher level of consciousness. Then everything slows down in front of you, so that you can respond.
If you watch top athletes who gets into this “zone”, as sports people often call it, you will notice that their eyes seem to glaze over or close halfway for a brief time. They might even appear to be going into a trance. That trance, of course, is the altered state of consciousness known to meditators. They go into a state of higher consciousness very briefly. A split second can seem to last much longer to a person in this state because there is no time or normal laws of physics in higher consciousness.
Most people think that specacular atheletes simply try harder when they “turn it on”. Certainly, they do find extra energy and move with greater speed in less time at these moments, almost as though time for them was standing still. These golden moments in an athelete’s life are truly magical. They can see everything happening in slow motion around them. They have all the time in the world to make amazing moves. They can run faster, think faster, and jump higher than anyone else. And all of this comes by slipping momentarily into higher consciousness, a nonphysical reality where time does not exist and the normal laws of physics do not apply. What’s even better, they operate in these golden moments with a higher consciousness that thinks faster and better than the normal, physical consciousness that people use.
Remember that you control time as you experience it. As an agent of change, you control the only real measure of time. This is because time only occurs with change. The theatre of events around us is interpreted by our personal perception of change. Your perception will be somewhat different from mine, although we might agree on many things we observe together. Because of your unique perception, you create your own reality. You also create your own sense of time as an agent of change. Time simply measures change. Beyond that simple function, time is nonexistent. There is really only the “now”.
Since time only operates according to perception of it, you can manipulate time by controlling your perception of it. Your higher consciousness exist in the realm of timelessness. Stay in a state of heightened awareness in order to make your perception of time stand still. It is a matter of personal time perception and a focused intent to stay in the now. There are people who use such time powers to transverse great distances in very little amount of time and cause limited resources to last far longer than normal as though inexhaustible. Such are the miracles that happen when time and space are altered.
Slow Time Down and Stop the World
Sword masters and ninjas all use this “slowing time down” and “stopping the world” with the mind technique to accomplish amazing feats of lightning fast combat which normal perceiving people can hardly even comprehend how it is humanly possible for themselves to attempt.

We miss ourselves. We are so busy out there in our minds, in the mirror, on the phone, on the pc, listening to deafening music, overtaking, seeking power, status, labels. The boy racer feels alive, excited, when he is near a near death opportunity! Adrenalin pumping, over excited, showing off, seeking attention, seeking power, seeking approval, fearful. Fight or flight that we cannot see the signs. We make mistakes, we miss turnings, we lose or forget things. Because we lose the plot, we lose reign of our senses.

Only when there’s an accident, a car crash, a thump on the head, a slap in the face, a comment, a synchronistic moment, a glance from a beautiful person, song of a sweet bird, the rising or setting of the sun, a shooting star, ever renewing the rhythm of the waves do we stop for a second…time slows down…in awe, devotion, speechlessness, thoughtlessness, our ears perk up. We become aware of something here now. Something beautiful, fresh, sweet, pristine, shining, glowing, evervessant, ever fresh. Only at these times, are we awake, truly alive - during the skid / bang / crash - time slows down.

Mindfulness can be defined as knowing what is happening while it is happening, no matter what it is. The essence of meditation is training in mindfulness. It’s direct perception. We see through meditation, what the mind is doing, moment by moment. Why? Because we are training ourselves to become present. If we are present, we naturally bring our intelligence to bear on the moment. Therefore we have no option but to find out what is happening.

Meditation, then, involves being present with what is here. The observer consciousness allows you to fully observe what is happening internally as well. You notice thoughts and feelings as they arise and realize the causes. It is a self-reflective awareness where you know you are thinking when thinking happens. When you become mindful, you become more aware of things both within and without. The way to wisdom and intelligence is to understand ourselves as human beings. Not through a theory, not through a concept, but through direct experience.
When you are calm, you are clear seeing. You filter out a lot of noise that affects consciousness. To have a calm mind is to silence and still a lot of vibrations leaving perception to be free and unhindered. You get into the state of observer consciousness, where you are just watching what is going on and seeing it in every moment of its happening. Mindfulness is the systematic training in knowing what is happening, while it is happening.
As the mind becomes tranquil, many things begin to become clear. Things that were not formerly clear to us about ourselves, the world around us, the way we are living, relationships. We become clear about everything. So we need to generate within our minds the conditions for a prelimary mindfulness which is the essence of meditation. As tranquility arises we began gaining insight into the state of our own minds. Insight may arise naturally with tranquility. That is the traditional teaching. We train in tranquility and insight naturally arises.
Insight is the most profound level of learning. It is learning through direct perception which naturally gives rise to understanding. It is not learning through externally acquired information, something imported from outside. It leads to wisdom because it is learning inwardly how we are and what we are as human beings. When your meditation becomes really powerful, it also becomes constant. Life offers many challenges and the serious meditator is very seldom bored.
When you’re looking for something or a solution, take time to pause and enter the stilled state of consciousness. Don’t think of it as wasting time during the work day. With practice, this little exercise takes very little time, as others perceive it. Think of it as a creative way to think through your problems by engaging your higher mind to meditate on work issues. In that state of consciousness, the answer can come to you suddenly.
Remember, even a brief second in an altered state of consciouness can seem like hours, since you are controlling time. You are creating perfect timing of perfecting time manipulation. Time is but an illusion. There is all of the time in the world, if you can focus your intent and control your perception. Make your own reality.
Any activity where you perform can be expanded and enriched by a heightned state of awareness that allows you to expand your perception of time and operate somewhat outside of normal physical limitations.

Slow down only that which you want to, otherwise allow it to proceed at normal speed. Use rapid perception on whatever you want to, whenever you want to.

Enoch Tan is the creator of Secrets of Mind Reality.

Do the Right Things Right Now

As one of my Mastermind members said at our last meeting, "If I could get half as much done as you, I'd be happy."

Well, it's not that hard. It starts with doing the right things, right now. Too many people do the wrong things all day. Doing the right things starts by knowing what the right things are. And that all starts with your daily secret weapon revealed by Mark Ford in his guest essay below.

Craig Ballantyne

"Productivity is never an accident. It is always the result of a commitment to excellence, intelligent planning, and focused effort." - Paul J. Meyer

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Using Daily Task Lists to Accomplish Your Goals

By Mark Ford

I didn't always plan my days. For most of my career, in fact, I didn't.
I had written goals. And I referred to them regularly. My goals kept me pointed in the right direction, but I was always moving back and forth. Often for no good reason.

Driving to work in the morning, I would think about my goals. That helped motivate me and often gave me specific ideas about what tasks I should accomplish that day. I'd walk into work meaning to complete those tasks... but by the end of the day, many of them were not done.

What happened? The same thing that may be happening to you right now. You sit down at your desk, and there is a pile of new mail in your inbox. You pick up the phone, and 15 messages are waiting for you. You open your computer, and find that you've received 50 new e-mails since you last checked. You tell yourself that you will get to your important tasks later. Right now, you have to "clean up" all these little emergencies.

Before you know it, the day is over and you haven't taken a single step toward achieving your important goals. You make an effort to do something, but you are tired. Tomorrow, you tell yourself, you will do better.

Does that sound familiar?

If so, don't feel bad. You are in good company. Most people deal with their work that way. Even people who set goals and achieve them. Over the long term, they get everything done. But on a day-to-day basis, they are constantly frustrated.

You can be successful without planning your days... but you will have to work a lot longer and harder. The reason? When you don't plan your days, you end up working for other people - not just for yourself. You feel that before you get to your own work, you should first deal with their requests.

Starting your day by clearing out your inbox, voicemail inbox, and e-mail inbox is just plain dumb. Most of what is waiting for you every morning has nothing to do with your goals and aspirations. It is work that other people want you to do for them.

If you want to be the captain of your soul and the master of your future, you have to be in charge of your time. And the best way to be in charge of your time is to structure your day around a task list that you, and only you, create.

As I said, simply writing down my goals helped me accomplish a good deal. But my productivity quadrupled when I started managing my schedule with a daily task list. If you use the system I'm going to recommend, I'll bet you see the same improvement.

I have used many standard organizing systems over the years, but was never entirely satisfied with any of them. The system I use now is my own - based on the best of what I found elsewhere.

At the beginning of the year, I lay out my goals for the next 12 months. I ask myself "What do I need to achieve in January, February, etc. to keep myself on track?" Then, at the beginning of each month, I lay out my weekly objectives. Finally, every day, I create a very specific daily task list.

Here's how I do it...

My Personal Daily Task List

I begin each day the day before.

What I mean by that is that I create my daily task list at the end of the prior day. I create Tuesday's task list at the end of Monday's workday. I create Wednesday's at the end of Tuesday's workday.
I begin by reviewing the current day's list. I note which tasks I've done and which I have failed to do. My new list - the next day's task list - begins with those uncompleted tasks. I then look at my weekly objectives to see if there are any other tasks that I want to add. Then I look through my inbox and decide what to do with what's there. I may schedule some of those items for the following day. Most of them, I schedule for later or trash or redirect to someone else.

I do all this in pen on a 6" x 9" pad of lined paper. I divide the paper vertically to create columns for the tasks, for the time I estimate it will take to do each one, and for the actual time it takes me to complete it. I also create a column for tasks I will delegate to my assistant.

On most days, I end up with about 20 15-minute to one-hour tasks.

Here is a typical daily list.

I like doing this by hand, in pen and ink. You may prefer to do it on your computer. The point is to enjoy the process.

Because longer tasks tend to be fatiguing, I seldom schedule anything that will take more than an hour. If you have a task that will take several hours, break it up into pieces and do it over a few days. It will be easier to accomplish. Plus, you will probably do a better job because you'll be doing it with more energy and with time to review and revise your work as you go.

A typical day for me includes two or three one-hour tasks, three or four half-hour tasks, and a dozen or so 15-minute tasks. The kind of work you do may be different, but I like that balance. It gives me flexibility. I can match my energy level throughout the day to my task list.

Ideally, you should get all of your important tasks and most of your less important tasks done almost every day. You want to accomplish a lot so you can achieve your long-term goals as quickly as possible. But you also want to feel good about yourself at the end of the day.

You may find, as I did, that when you begin using this system you will be overzealous - scheduling more tasks than you can possibly handle. So set realistic time estimates when you write down your tasks. And double-check them at the end of the day by filling in the actual time you spent on each one.

When you complete a task, scratch it off your list. One task done! On to the next one! I've been doing this for years, and I still get a little burst of pleasure every time.

Creating each daily task list should take you less than 15 minutes. The secret is to work from your weekly objectives - which are based on your monthly and yearly goals.

This system may not work for you, but I urge you to give it a try. I think you'll like it.

Before your colleagues, competitors, and coworkers are even sipping their first cup of coffee, you'll have figured out everything you need to do that day to make you healthier, wealthier, and wiser. You will know what to do, you will know what your priorities are, and you will already be thinking about some of them. You will not have to worry about forgetting something important. And you will have a strong sense of energy and excitement, confident that your day is going to be a productive one.

Your Triumph Over Discontentment

Discontentment is a kind of psychic echo. In fact, whatever the unhappiness may be, it is only an inner echo that is "sounding" within us. As difficult as it may be to understand this at the present time, suffering only seems real. It has no real life. How is this possible?
Our inner stress, strain, and pain feel real to us, for sure; but then, so do all of the fears we feel in the middle of a nightmare. But where is the terror once we wake up? It doesn't exist anymore because it was only real as long as we were participating in the bad dream. Try to see this important idea. A painful event, whether it's twenty-four hours or twenty-four years old, echoes within us as a memory of some kind. The emotional "sound" of it when it is recalled makes us feel uncomfortable and discontented. So we set out to isolate this disturbance, identify and resolve it, in order to regain the contentment we say we will feel once this ache goes away.
All of this sounds reasonable, right? Wrong! The catch here, and where we always take the wrong turn, is that the "you" who sets out to turn the discontentment into contentment isn't really you at all! Let's try to understand this amazing new idea by imagining a man lost in a series of deep and dark caverns. He anxiously shouts out "hello!" and then strains to listen for a response. A heartbeat passes, and in the distance he hears "hello, hello." His spirits surge, and off he races in the direction of the caller. He doesn't understand it is only an echo. He doesn't know he is following the sound of his own voice -- a voice that is taking him deeper and deeper into the caves and further away from any real help that could deliver him back into the sunlight.
In an illustration like this, it is easy for us to see that the man lost in the cave didn't know he was listening to himself. If he had known differently, he wouldn't have trusted or followed the sound of his own voice echoing back at him. His mistake was assuming that the voice he was hearing belonged to someone else who wasn't lost like he was.
When it comes to discontentment or any other unhappiness, we are making a similar painful mistake that is taking us further and further away from real rescue. Like the man lost in the caves, we are living with and acting from an equally false assumption. We believe that those voices within us, which so readily point out the discontentment in our lives, are doing this pointing from some safe harbor of contentment that we can reach only by following their directions. These persistent and often highly pitched thoughts and feelings project a future well-being for us, a safe harbor -- but a harbor that wouldn't be necessary if these same thoughts and feelings hadn't whipped up a storm in the first place.
Your present level of thinking is your discontentment. You are not discontented. You have never been unhappy, not now or ever before. No self-described condition of what you have or don't have is at the root of your aching. Your feelings of discontentment and unhappiness, all of these hollow echoes, are the very nature of the false self with which you have unknowingly identified.
Try to remember that what you really want isn't just to feel different. No, you want to be different. Where feelings invariably fail, being always triumphs. Who you really are is not separate from the very cause of life itself. We can use other words to name this absolute Source, but what we call it is not of any importance. What is important to remember is when something from within you starts telling you that you are all alone, you are not hearing your nature but the voice of separateness itself. This is why you must never do anything about your discontentment -- because it is not your discontentment.
Don't be afraid of not having something to do. If you will permit the inner echoing to fade, it will disappear. Choose being over doing, and one day there will be no more pain in what you do or don't do, because you won't be doing anything anymore to prove to yourself that you are real. You are, and you will know it.

One Selfish Reason People Struggle

By Craig Ballantyne
Each week I hear from smart, passionate men and women who want to start a side business but are being held back by perfectionism and procrastination. For example, the other day I received this comment on my blog:

“I’ve wanted to make a series of educational videos for a couple of years and have been seriously working on my first video for 6 months! My problem is that I’m too much of a perfectionist when it comes to making a product. That perfectionism is totally holding me back.”

I suppose the politically correct reply would have been to coddle the writer, give them a little "you can do it" pep talk, and send them on their way.

But that’s only part of the truth. Instead, I decided to be blunt (as this seems to be my default method of communication). Here’s what I said:

The reason why you don’t have your product done is because you are selfishly protecting yourself from the criticism of others.

Maybe you’re worried about being labeled a salesman by someone on the Internet that you’ll never, ever meet in person. But just understand that while you are selfishly protecting yourself, you are hurting the people who need your help the most.

You are hurting the men and women who need your information and guidance more than you need their money. Every day you hold back on finishing your information product or starting your business is another day of pain for your prospects.

Every day you don’t email your prospects because you don’t want to be thought of as a pushy salesperson, you are FAILING the very people you’ve devoted your life to helping.

Every day your prospects are out there buying some other product that doesn’t work, they are suffering from MORE and MORE frustration and pain. It’s not only hurting them, but it’s hurting the ones they love.

How do I know this is true?

Personal experience.  I may have told you this story before, but it stuck with me.

Let’s go back to one fine day in 1979. I’m sitting in the ugly green boat that was my Mom’s car. We lived on a farm on the outskirts of a small city and we were driving home one morning after she attended her weight loss meeting. Even at four years old, as I sat beside her in the front seat I could sense the devastation she was feeling.

I turned to her from my over-sized seat in that giant car and said, “Mom, what’s wrong?”

She looked down at me, and though she wasn’t crying, even as a little boy at 4-years old, I could tell she was upset, and she said, “The scale didn’t change today.”

In my eyes, they failed her, as did everyone else who had a better weight loss solution. Everyone in the world who knew how to help my Mom failed us that day because they hadn’t been able to get their solution into her hands.

Over thirty-two years later I’m still thinking about how that day was ruined because no one was able to solve my Mom’s problem. The pain on my mother’s face crushed me (but has led me to dedicate my life to helping one million men and women transform their bodies and lives with fitness information that really works).

Do you get the point?

You don’t have to sell “weight loss to women” to understand this example.

You could sell advice on rebounding from a divorce, protecting someone’s financial assets, helping someone get a date, or career advice for the newly unemployed.

It doesn’t matter what you sell.

What DOES matter is that you have potential clients out there who NEED your help more than you need their money.

Every day your product or business plan sits half-finished on your computer the pain in your prospects increases dramatically.

For example, every day a credit repair expert delays getting their solution into the hands of good folks who are in debt, parents continue to argue at their kitchen table while their poor little children stand at the top of the stairs and listen.

You are scarring those kids for life.

How does it feel to know that your potential clients are going to bed with tears in their eyes tonight?

Listen, this is not about making money. This is not even about you.

This is about the people you could be helping, but aren’t, because you don’t want anyone to call you a “jerk” because you’re trying to sell something.

You MUST get over that.

Stop thinking about the one or two negative emails you’ll get, and focus on the thousands of people you’ll help, and the hundreds of success stories you’ll receive every year.

If you can help people who were as frustrated as my mom was that day, then you are nothing short of an angel.

You are bringing extreme value to the world by solving other people’s problems. You will be rewarded with the income you deserve, but only when you finally GET IT DONE.

The more people you help, the more you will make.

The more you MAKE, the more you can HELP.

Are you getting this?

No matter what you do – whether you write information products on protecting your family during emergencies, or helping people with fat loss, or helping folks get out of debt, or one of the hundreds of other topics that can help others, please realize you MUST get your product done before it can help someone.

Don’t tell me that your market is too crowded. There is still plenty of opportunity for you if you are a value creator. There will always be opportunity and rewards for you if you can solve someone’s problem.

But first, you have to GET IT DONE.

If that doesn’t motivate you to bolt the doors, turn off the phone, and avoid the Internet for a few hours to finish your product, then frankly nothing I can ever say will help you.

So just remember…

Every day that you don’t have it done…someone out there remains in pain.

Never forget that

The Delayed Secret to Lifetime Success

This success secret was first discovered in a surprising location. I stumbled across it by accident while in church at the age of six. However, it had nothing to do with the scriptures and everything to do with a mischievous young boy protecting his candy stash from his sister. Let me explain in today’s success essay.

Craig Ballantyne

“Whatever you reinforce or reward, you get more of.” – Kekich Credo #15

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The Power of Delay

By Craig Ballantyne
As a child, I spent every Sunday morning at First St. John’s Lutheran Church. Each week, our family would go through the same routine. It started with a bath, followed by my mom painfully combing the tangles out of my naturally curly hair. She’d then dress me in my Sunday best, and my uncle would pick me up at 9 a.m. sharp for pre-church Sunday School that was held in the church basement.

At 11 a.m., my sister and I would head upstairs and join my mother in the third pew from the back on the left hand-side. That’s where we sat every Sunday morning for over two decades. As I grew older, I developed the discipline to sit through the hour-long service without misbehaving. However, as a six-year-old boy anxious to get home to his baseball bats and hockey sticks, getting me to sit still for sixty minutes (and seventy-five minutes during the once a month communion Sunday service) was a difficult task.

My mother’s solution to this problem was candy. It’s a pretty good answer to any six-year-old’s problems, I imagine. After about twenty minutes of the service, when ennui began to set in for my sister and I, she brought out rolls of sweet tarts for each of us.

And here’s where I learned a valuable habit that has helped me succeed in life.

I made it my mission every Sunday morning to hold out longer than my sister before eating the candy. Some weeks I’d hide my candy, pretending I’d eaten it, and then, when I knew my sister was done with hers, I’d produce my sweet tarts from my pocket and take great pleasure in eating the tiny candy pieces in front of her. On other occasions, it would be a straight-up battle of wills as we both played with our candy in an attempt to see who could go the longest without eating it.

What I discovered on those Sunday mornings was the power of delayed gratification. As a young boy in church, I used this skill to “win” at the candy game with my sister. As a teenager, I put this power to use by forcing myself to go to my after-school job, then to the gym to lift weights, and then home to do homework, all before going out with my friends.

In my college years – excluding my freshman year where I let the habit slide – I used delayed gratification to put schoolwork first over late night partying. This way, I’d end up on the Dean’s Honor List three years in a row – and eventually win a scholarship that paid for my time in graduate school. I still remember the Friday nights spent in the lab finishing up my research projects until 10 p.m. before finally rushing out to meet my friends at a house party.

The power of delayed gratification is, in fact, a research-proven phenomenon. There’s a famous study that was performed at Stanford University, the kind you’d read about in a Malcolm Gladwell-esque business book, known as the “Stanford Marshmallow Experiment."

In the study, researchers tracked a group of four-year-old children, each of whom was given a marshmallow and instructed to wait twenty minutes before eating it. The children were then monitored for their developmental progress into adolescence. The scientists, led by Professor Walter Mischel, discovered that the children that were better able to wait to eat the marshmallow—delaying gratification—were generally more dependable and achieved greater scores in their Scholastic Aptitude Tests.

Substitute a church pew for a Stanford University research lab and sweet tarts for marshmallows, and you can see the personal connection I have with this research.

But I don’t believe that the ability to delay gratification is something that you must be born with. Instead, it’s a powerful habit you can build. However, it seems that most people (from the Boomer Generation to the much-maligned Millennial Generation) have missed this lesson. Instead, too many people spend their paychecks when they get them – or even before. As a result, they get deep into debt. They want it all. And they want it now. But that’s not how it works if you want to be successful.

Work comes first. Then reward. It’s not the other way around.

No matter where you’ve stood in the past on this success equation, you can change. Just like we can all learn to get up earlier, make exercise a daily habit, or improve our diet, you too can build the habit of delayed gratification. The rockstar Sting even suggests we can learn delayed gratification for the benefit of tantric sex, but that’s another article for another day, I suppose.

Here’s an easy place for you to start working on developing your power of delayed gratification. It’s your email inbox. You and I will surely both agree that if you can avoid getting sucked into your email each morning that you’ll be able to get more done each day. So do it. Just delay it. Wait one more minute each day before opening your inbox and checking that first email.

I learned to do this and started my progression back in the summer of 2007. Up until that point, I was an email “first thing in the morning” person. I rolled out of bed and practically right into the chair at my computer (it helped that I was living in a 400 square foot bachelor apartment at the time). Some days, I didn’t even have to roll out of bed. I was able to check my email on my Blackberry while my head was still on the pillow.

Over time I worked to decrease my dependency on morning messages. First, I stopped all email from being sent to my inappropriately named “smart phone” (as it wasn’t making me any smarter at all). Next, I began the habit of walking the dog and then writing for just fifteen minutes before checking my email. Slowly the fifteen minutes blossomed into thirty, expanded into sixty, and has grown into a magic five hours of productive time before I finally check my email in the morning.

If I can do it, you can do it too, I promise.

Struggles will come first. But you must look at the work and the struggles as blessings. Practice (i.e., training) is the only way you can build up your delayed gratification muscle and with it the benefits you’ll get in many areas of your life.

Like running hills or squatting weights, it’s going to be hard at first, but you will come to appreciate your new power of habit. The rewards are well worth it.

Mastery takes time. But mastery is worth the effort.

Take action. Struggle. Fight. Flex. And work.

You can do it. You will do it.