Reality Based Thinking

Reality TV seems to be by far the hottest thing on the tube right now. It amazes me that people watch so much reality TV, yet they don’t face reality in their own lives. You see, in “reality” there are two ways of viewing life that ultimately dictate how you choose to live. They are two dichotomous world perspectives. These two worlds are – the world of “Should Be” and the world of “As Is.” The sooner you get out of the world of “Should Be” and enter the world of “As Is”, the faster you will succeed in life.

There is a very common school of thought that suggests that a perfect balance of fairness and equality should exist amongst all people - there “should be” no racism, no sexism, no classism, no poor, no exceedingly rich, no this, no that, and SOMEBODY should Change the way things are so everyone has a chance to be equal because that would be fair. In a perfect world, all of that might be true, but… that is not REALITY.

The world of “As Is” puts the truth straight in your face and forces you to deal with it as it is. Once you deal with the world of "As Is", you make no more excuses for not being successful no matter what you are starting with or what obstacles are presented to you. You become solution oriented and no longer use HOPE as a strategy (Hoping things will change and be equal is a poor strategy. You accept the real world and navigate your way through the tough challenges of life. You will succeed or you won’t and no one will care except you… that’s the world of As Is.

The world of "As Is" says that even though the playing field is not level and there are many obstacles in front of me, I have the power to overcome them or to succumb to them, but either way it’s MY CHOICE.

Below are two examples to dramatically illustrate how crazy it is when you are stuck in the world of "should be" and how simple life can be when you enter the world of "as is."

Person #1 walks into a room with the intent to come out on the other side but soon realizes that there is no door to exit. He says to himself, “hmmm! There should be a door here,” and proceeds to walk into the wall. He backs up and gets angry and says again, “there should be a door here.” He continues bumping into the wall over and over until he finally gives up hope and sits down and progresses no further thinking to himself that life is not fair because there should be a door here.

Person #2 walks into the same room with the intention of coming out on the other side and also sees that there is no exit straight through. The thought does cross her mind that there should be a door there, but she does not hesitate or dwell on that thought. She simply walks back out the door having learned a valuable lesson, and then walks through the adjoining hallway that she discovered being solution oriented and passes by that room on to her desired destination.

Which world are you living in?

The Secret to Success Is No Real Secret

Let me first say that I enjoyed and appreciated reading Napoleon Hill’s classic wealthy mindset book, Think and Grow Rich. I can also say it was a brilliant strategy to take the principles of that book and put them in a modern medium (video) and create the “Secret,” another best seller and soon to be classic. They were both inspirational and chock full of exercises geared towards aligning your mind towards attracting wealth. I recommend anyone considering getting rich should own a copy of each. As a matter of fact, when surveyed, many self made millionaires said that “Think and Grow Rich” influenced them more than any other book except the Bible. That is pretty powerful.

As powerful as aligning your mind towards money is, it is NOT enough. Ultimately, only one thing will get you what you want – the one thing Napoleon Hill left out of the book and the “Secret” never addressed. That one thing is no real mystery – it’s DECISIVE ACTION.

“Rules such as ‘if I hold positive thoughts about prosperity, money will just start pouring into my life’ are just too simplistic to work… money exists in the physical domain. Money doesn’t come as the result of thoughts in the metaphysical realm; it comes as the result of actions in the physical domain." -Maria Nemeth, PhD; author of "The Energy of Money"

The bottom line is you can think about money, talk about it, write about it in your journal, list it with your things to do, hang it on the refrigerator in the form of an affirmation, and tell as many people that will bother to listen to you about your dreams, but none of that will make you successful unless you take decisive action. “Action speaks louder than words!”

Every day you must take focused and specific action towards your desired outcomes. If your thoughts and words are not congruent with your actions towards attaining wealth, then wealth will never be achieved. Once you align your thoughts, feelings and actions towards attaining wealth, it will come easy and continue to come for as long as you remain consistent.