IRD!
that is why we have got to MAN UP or WOMAN UP, become an individual who is autonomous and self-fulfilled, learn how to be socially-savvy with people so that you live a lifestyle of abundance, and then come from a place where you OFFER VALUE to others instead of being YET ANOTHER victim who throws himself/herself down at the currents of life.
i know that it was not until i was totally happy with my life and myself, and even BEING WITHOUT a woman or WITHOUT the need for validations from people that suddenly women/people started popping out from behind bushes suddenly wanting to be my girlfriend and friend.
this leads to the real MEAT of this article.
one of the biggest thing i have learned about IRD (or “letting your light so shine before men”) after all these years is that you have got to STICK TO THE SCRIPT.
that means NO EXCEPTIONS.
what is this magical “script” you ask??
here go. really simple.
1. Live Your Life AKA Live YOUR Difference
2. Enjoy People’s Company (and not too take life way too seriously)
3. Assume Absolutely Nothing (not “expect nothing”, but assume nothing)
3b. ASSUME ABSOLUTELY FRIGGIN’ NOTHING. =)
i cannot emphasize this enough.
over the years, i have taken enough scrapes and bruises to know that what is written above is absolutely true, with zero percent exceptions.
see, where i come from — and what had people all wanting me for a relationship for a period of about 6 months prior to choosing the people that i really wanted to be in relationships with — was just being TRULY HAPPY being who i am AND TRULY FULFILLED doing my own thing.
it was not until I was TRULY happy living my own life that i started to experience a personally unprecedented level of success.
it is all about enjoying the stars (people’s) company without the SLIGHTEST shred of attachement to outcome.
many individuals (especially guys) can put on the act, but there is still this “thin shelack” of neediness that is coming through.
the absolutely key formula for allowing your real self to shine through, in my experience, is fine-tuning your mindset and personality to be the kind of soul who sub-communicates a lot of qualities that is YOU, and then just BE that person 100% congruently.
doing it this way means that you do not have to put on your “upbeat personality” when you do your first approach. you are already “ON” because you are already “that guy” or “that gal”.
you can LIVE YOUR LIFE and ENJOY PEOPLE’s (especially the opposite gender) COMPANY, without assuming absolutely anything.
ask yourself. (and answer honestly).
“Am I just vying for a relationship because I got lucky this one time and can’t figure out how to repeat the result, and I think that it might be a while until I get into another fabulous relationship (romantic or platonic)?”
if that is the case, you are still coming from a position of total scarcity!
relationships with truly RARE men and women come from a position of abundance, not insecurity. point blank period.
that is why you have just got to live your life AND LIVE YOUR DIFFERENCE, enjoy people’s company, and assume absolutely nothing.
LIFE is just chalked full of opportunities and amazing things to be grateful for. there is just so much to do in so little time, and you have to have a clear-cut standard about who you are willing to share it with.
you have got to be the CEO of your own life, and the guy who hires and fires who you hang out with.
“Just Do You.”
chillax. love:live. celebrate. assume nothing. and be needy for nothing.
it can only bring you much happiness. and a rare presence in your life MOST peeps you know do not have.
it is just a matter of sticking to the script.
this feeling of inferiority comes about for one reason: we judge ourselves and measure ourselves, not against our own “norm” or “par” but against some other individual’s “norm”. when we do this, we always without exception, come out second best.
but because we think, and believe, and assume that we SHOULD measure up to some other person’s “norm”, we feel miserable and second-rate, and conclude that there must be something wrong with us.
inferiority and superiority are reverse sides of the same coin. the cure lies in realizing that the coin itself is spurious.
the TRUTH about YOU is this:
YOU are NOT inferior.
YOU are NOT superior.
YOU are simply YOU.
YOU as a personality and as a soul are not in competition with any other soul simply because there is not another person on the face of the earth like you, or in your particular class.
YOU are an individual. YOU are unique. YOU are NOT like any other person and can never become like any other person. YOU are NOT sposed to be like any other person and no other person is sposed to be like you.
GOD did not create a standard of a person and in someway label that person saying: “this is it”. He made every human being individual and unique just as He made every snowflake or star individual and unique. GOD had never indicated any preference for any one size, shape or color.
STOP MEASURING YOURSELF against “their” standards. YOU are NOT them and can NEVER measure up. neither can they measure up to yours — nor should they.
once you see this simple, rather self-evident truth, accept it and believe it, your inferior and superior feelings will vanish.
then you can now go and live your difference.
one of the trippest things about constant self-actualization is the whole “Reticular Activation System” phenomenon.
what is Reticular Activation System? well first, it is a big mouthful of a word like ceLIVErity.
basically, RAS is what filters out information you do not need and focuses in on what you DO, so that you are able to tune into the things that are both most valuable and most threatening to you, and keep yourself alive.
is there something valuable around like a hot person or your favourite food?
RAS tunes into it.
did you hear a gun shot go off?
RAS tunes into that too.
seriously, this stuff is sooooooo weird, but once you recognize it, you will find yourself seeing it constantly.
again, it is RAS that makes you suddenly start constantly noticing it.
the whole RAS thing is also why the rule of focus on what you want, not on what you do not want is so massively, utterly important.
when you are focused on what you want, your RAS eventually leads you to find the solution.
in my case, learning the whole “IRD” journey has been about a five year personal odyssey.
i would constantly have all sorts of crippling sticking points that i could not find my way around. maybe i could get rapport but not an inside. maybe an inside but not a chill time. later it became getting socially savvy but could never make it to the finish line.
and all that, to be honest, was the least of it.
i also had goals like learning to be more chilled out, more real, and natural. that was even more difficult, but it allowed me to become a “ceLIVErity” with people who really *does* very little when i talk to them other than just to *be* who i am.
beyond success with IRD, there was also the personal odyssey of dating my destiny full time. with my destiny, i was/am constantly circling around various concepts, unable to figure out the missing pieces.
it almost drove me to the brink of insanity on some nights.
funny enough, a lot of the answers i came to were ALREADY OUT THERE and fairly well known by lots of people. i would just never previously been aware of them.
i only FOUND absolutely vital resources because i knew what i wanted, and RAS eventually pointed me in the right direction.
personally, i have full faith that you can accomplish whatever you set your mind to accomplish, EVEN IF YOU HAVE NOT THE SLIGHTEST CLUE OF HOW YOU WILL DO SO, just so long as you focus on WHAT YOU WANT and put yourself in a position where have absolutely no choice but to succeed.
in my case, i will travel to different locations and put myself into various situations to keep stimulating my brain with new input until it finds the answers or creative inspirations that it needs.
that is also why i advise people who are supremely dedicated towards accomplishing a personal goal OR committed to dating their destiny to travel and get as much new mental input as humanly possible.
it is often during these experiences that people find their “missing piece”.
i have always got SOMETHING i am journeying on. something edgy. something fun. something real. something out there (way out there).
the process i am talking about here, it is the process that i have TOTAL FAITH IN in order to get this stuff done.
it is something i have had to learn to harness over time, as well as to redirect outwardly so the process is mostly “outside of my head” and done “in the moment” rather than using up all my mental energy. here and now.
shooting it straight, it is not always easy.
but, hey, my soul craves stimulation and experiences … and life is just so darned short.
the thing is, when you are in a position with a lot of visibility, people just have a hard time being NORMAL around you.
yea, it sounds cool to have people looking up to you, but the truth is: YOU CAN NEVER LIVE UP TO THE HYPE because you are only human — and they are always going to be disappointed or even bitter when they find out the dude they followed dogmatically is not as infallible as they thought.
i have learned the hard way that your only “REAL” friends are the ones who have nothing to gain from you — other than to hang out and relate with you and have a good time.
if a guy wants or needs something from you, you really cannot gauge what his personality is like until the whole status dynamic has come into equilibrium.
then, and ONLY THEN, do you start to know who the person really is.
that is not to say that you should assume the worst, but rather, that you should just enjoy the comraderie aspects and reserve judgement until you have more of a history in place. the same rule applies to girls as well, really.
anyway, the direction i am taking this in is that i got to a point where i had major trust issues with people and i became very emotionally closed off.
usually i felt defensive and paranoid — like i had to be “STAR” (ie: Mr. Charisma) even if i was just out trying to get a bite to eat.
it was like being in a whirlwind where i could not distinguish who my real friends were anymore. and i had massive doubts about whether or not i could keep my game-face on for everyone who counted on me to be a source of grounding energy. hey, i was in the people business.
think of it like being surrounded by a fog. you are trying to see what is going on and keep yourself moving forward, but your reality is being constantly pressed upon and messed with.
a high-visibility individual is special in that they are capable of dealing with the tsumani of social pressure that comes from all the various public opinion and still keep their sense of “reality” intact.
some people are born with this and others cultivate it over time, but fundamentally there are a lot of people who just are not ready for it and wind up going all out “self-destruct”.
in my case, i have really tried to stay out of the major spotlight and allow myself time to cultivate some real substance, because i have always felt that when it comes to the spotlight, those with authencity achieve the longevity and those without it come-and-go as passing fads.
i am confident about my strengths, but i also know my limitations (i have many) and always have a gameplan to progressively chip away at them.
over time, i feel that i have really come into equilibrium with all this.
i think it is also been especially important for me to learn from other people who have walked the same path, and to understand that most of what i have been through has been common for virtually every other person in my shoes.
it is so funny to be chatting some of my higher-profile mentors in the self-help industry, and they will say: “I bet x,y,z happened to you…” and i will be like: “WHAT?? How did you now that?!”
of course, it is because it has happened to EVERYBODY.
a universal principle of “coming into your own” is that “you have got to know that the more personal a wound is, the more universal it probably is” — which means that when you understand that other people have been through the same thing, it allows you to stop IDENTIFYING with it and realize that it’s a part of a larger age-old story.
WHAT I HAVE LEARNED ABOUT BEING IN A HIGH-VISIBILITY ROLE.
10. always assume the best in people. never let old wounds make you assume the worst. that can only be a self-fulfilling prophecy.
09. the best way to talk to people is just to make your self fully open to them. do not put pressure on yourself to play the role they might or might not expect from you. the greatest gift you can give to them is just to be “fully present” and listen to what they have to say. accept them.
08. be the kind of soul who people would hang around with regardless of your so-called status. there is an old trap where when you get status, you start acting badly because you know you can get away with it, and then wind up in a constant cycle of people coming into your life and leaving when they have taken all the value. ask yourself if you would hang out with yourself if it were not for the status. if the answer is “no”, then change.
07. always remember that the people who love your work are the ones who put you in the position you are in, you know what i mean. appreciate them with everything you have got. never allow yourself to think of it as “inconvenience to your chill time” because your chill time only exists BECAUSE OF THEM.
06. create a routine that is as “normal” as possible. have buddies who you play sports with and hang out with, without any talk of your job. never, ever read your press. stay away from any internet site’s or paper’s opinions of you. if it is necessary for feedback, have people skim them and pass you along what is useful. you would be absolutely amazed at how when you are getting crucified in the press that if you JUST DO NOT READ IT, it is like it does not exist, which allows you to operate at your best. believe it or not, you can actually maintain a fully normal life by just going about your job and viewing all the people who know you as an EXTENDED FAMILY almost like living in a small town community, just on a global scale.
05. never take the props too seriously because then you will have to take the criticism seriously as well. as long as YOU know who YOU ARE, that has to be enough. you always have a few people who really connect with your stuff, but the vast majority will be frighteningly fickle and jump ships as soon as something better comes along. that is fine, just do YOU.
04. all press is good press. when you are in the spotlight you are official public property. opinions are like schenanigans, everyone has got one – even entire blogs full of them. if you can not handle it, go home.
03. strive to continually improve and grow and offer more value. the temptation is to create something and then rest on your laurels, which if you give into it, you will find yourself constantly paranoid about being “replaced”. if you continue to innovate, you will never have to think about that. always be proactive and solve the larger issue by continuing to grow, instead of reacting and trying to protect what you wrongly believe is a finite amount of creative material. be willing to allow other people to take credit for your ideas, as it is an inevitable aspect of having “arrived” and you will never stop it entirely. nobody cares who “came up with it”, they only care who offers THEM the most value. use the energy you would spend making a stink about it to be more and more creative and offer more and more value.
02. THE HECK with status and coolness and all that crap. stay true to your real friends, and know what is authentic from what is hollow. if you look at the people who have stayed relevant for a long time, you will see that they have a lot of so-called “dorky/unusual” friends who you would not expect them to hang out with. they might even have a girlfriend/wife or boyfriend/husband who is not a “perfect 10″. there is a good reason for that. it is because they are REAL.
01. know what it means to be “grounded”, “humble”, and “down to earth”. and live them out every waking moment. those three expressions are like your lifeline to the real world. to the real you.
. . . oh, if you want a fourth expression, it would be “know how to laugh at yourself”. ;p
i publicly said this many a time before and i will say it again: i do not take myself seriously, but i do take why i am here seriously.
experience comes at a price.
the self-improvement process basically works on the following premises:
(1) aligning your internal compass directly to where you want to go (as opposed to where you *don’t* want to go).
(2) activating your “reticular activation system” so that all the people, books, distinctions, and resources you previously never saw become apparent.
(3) building a new belief system, and using the “pymalion effect” of self-fulfilling prophecies to your advantage.
it is a field-tested process, which pretty much does the trick every time.
there is a downside though — the “descent into madness” factor.
one of the things that gets talked about sometimes is essentially the descent into madness that goes on when somebody cares about nothing other than transforming themselves. the general outlook is that it is a bad thing – you lose control over your thoughts, important aspects of your life fall by the wayside, and every waking moment is devoted to the contemplation and cultivation of a new identity.
take myself as an example: has my life been balanced? not in the slightest.
but more than anything, it is funny and SCARY to realize that you are the best at something (even though you are not all that good), and that if you want advice the only place you are going to be able to turn for it is inwards (even with the innercircle at your side).
could i have gotten here with balance? it is hard to say. i do not see a lot of people who did. and i have totally made the distinction between balance in life and harmony in life. i do not care for balance anymore, i am after harmony. and there is a huge distinction.
all the best individuals say the same thing: “Don’t become obsessed like I did.”
and yet, all the best ones were at one point obsessed. was it that becoming UNCONSCIOUSLY competent was their final step in development, or could it be that their obsession was unnecessary and that with better guidance they could have achieved the same thing from the get-go?
sometimes i think that self-help is a virus that has entered my mind (and the world) and is doing more harm than good. other times, i think i am one fotunate soul to live in a world where it is down to such a science/art – and not to be sitting back in a small town, married, working labour jobs like some.
it is a blessing and a curse.
i AM happier, but i do not believe it was the externals, it was learning to change my focus and live in a way that served me. the journey.
that is the irony.
attraction is not going to do any more for your life than having access to non-stop gourmet food or a giant screen plasma TV. it is awesome at first, but eventually things come into equilibrium and you either take it for granted or you do not.
if you are a guy who has the tendency to APPRECIATE and LOVE all things he has in his life, you will probably appreciate and love your future girlfriend. but if you do not appreciate and love what you have NOW, you probably will not appreciate the girlfriend that you eventually get.
you will grow bored, believe it or not.
point being, there really IS NO GAP between yourself and being worthy of these girls.
at least, no gap that you are not able to eventually close.
it comes down to becoming a better person.
building sharper social and relational skills.
BEING THE MAN.
A REAL, RARE MAN.
this stuff is all learnable.
if you want it for the right reasons, you will get it.
all that superficial conditioning you get from the idiot-box (tv) – it is NOT TRUE.
you have got to remember that.
there is no gap. or there is no spoon. whatever.
once you get to know a girl, and once she gets to know YOU, the dynamics of attraction get totally scrambled.
perceived value goes up or down. the lines get fuzzy.
the question is whether or not you CARRY YOURSELF in a way that is attractive and break through that INVISIBLE WALL.
and just as importantly, can your brain DISASSOCIATE from the brutal disconnect between your own value and hers for long enough that the true dynamic to become apparent.
it is not a technique we are talking about. it is a way that you live your life.
knowing who you are.
knowing what you value (and knowing your value).
knowing what your personal boundaries are.
knowing how you expect people to act around you, and offering that same value in return.
all these things are the foundations of keeps your mind CENTERED and allows you to LIVE THE TYPE OF LIFE THAT YOU WANT TO LIVE.
life is too short to do otherwise.
so keep plugging away at it, and eventually you will see that the disconnect was only in your mind. 
if you are centered enough to actually appreciate it, the results will be worth the stretch.
Filed under: d:e:r, IM'IJ, IRD, reaLIVEty, wealthventurity | mow, wellnessentials
i was going through random notes i had written down through the years to file which ones to keep and which ones to trash. and i came upon this note that was written back in 2002. the headline i wrote was “Project Soul : [RTS] : Back To Basics”. basics to living life. basics to who we really are. the basics. the essentials. a reminder. this is what was written on the one page:
i am a SPIRIT.
everyone is created equally.
-we all have equal potential
-we are all as good, beautiful as the next person
-no one is “better” than the other
GOD loves us no matter what.
there is NO limitation or lack in the spirit.
-only limitation, lack that exist is because we created it with our own minds or simply because we limit ourselves, but there really is no limit or lack.
our paradigm/condition can either hold us back or move us forward.
our attitude/perception to a great extent has a lot to do with the way we experience life and the way we treat people AND vice versa.
we are/were all created in GOD’s own image.
we have infinite (creative) power within us.
wisdom/knowledge/awareness is the only problem we all ever face.
knowing who GOD is AND knowing who you are IS the key to self-esteem and self-confidence.
we become what we think and feel about.
you are a CO-CREATOR.
EVERYTHING operates by LAW.
there is no one like you, so stop trying to fit in or be like everyone else. break the mold. stand out to fit in. cut yourself out of the line of paperdolls.
you cannot be happy outside or with others IF you are not happy inside or with yourself first. your inside experience determines your outside experience.
Filed under: d:e:r, IM'IJ, IRD, reaLIVEty, sorts, wealthventurity | mow, wellnessentials
your mind has a certain perception of what level of success you should have, and whether you like it or not, your mind will constantly play games with you to keep you at the level of success it thinks you should achieve.
this is one of the freakiest, hard to deal with barriers that you will ever encounter.
to truly transform and experience “deep identity level change”, you will have to fight and force and continually manage it the entire way through.
one of the biggest games your mind will play is making you remember and focus mostly on the events in your life it thinks are in alignment with the level of success that you are accustomed to – therefore allowing itself to be lazy and avoid working through the complexities of adjusting to a new set of beliefs.
so for example, if you do not think that you would be able to easily figure out the complexities of gaining massive success, your mind will literally screen out and forget all the good things you have done – in order that you do not get any “big ideas” about what you are really capable of, and submerge yourself into a new reality that would be taxing for your mind to have to think through.
your mind’s agenda is different than your own.
of course, it is fundamentally important that you force your mind to continually refocus on the positive that has happened (even if it is just ONE INCH of progress) – which can be done by journaling daily, talking about the good things that happened with friends who are supportive, or just regularly taking stock of how far you have come.
whatever it is, you have got to focus on that. no matter how small it might appear.
once your mind is conditioned to do this on its own then you have reached your goal and it is no longer something you have to do consciously – although if you find yourself falling back into old patterns, you will have to bring back the fundamentals and readjust.
you might say: “Why can’t I just look at my successes and failures realistically and focus on them with equal weight?”
but without a focus on the positive you really have nothing to build on.
you are not trying to be a scientist here.
you have got to force your mind to register it’s “OK” to take on a new set of foreign behaviours (even if they are in severe in conflict with your social conditioning), and to trust in a fresh set of bearings for a positive response.
by doing this, you scramble your mind’s attempts to self-sabotage you, and then you rewind and reground yourself at a later point once you have got the new reality locked down.
first:
the human mind is wired to be social, and so to figure out reality it is always looking for:
1. who has the most unwavering certainty
2. who the least emotional reaction to conflicting views
next:
you really only have emotional responses when:
1. the other person has a higher value than you
2. you need something from them more than they need something from you (ie: you might have higher status, but still need them to respond the way you want in order to uphold your reality, whereas they don’t need that from you)
when i see someone caring about what people think or say about them, or how they rate their girls or boys, or how other people respond to their posts, or whatever else — it tells me that their reality is still easily tossed around.
to me, there are two types of responses in posts –
1. a straightforward one, even addressing confusions or differences in beliefs
2. a “I need to re-establish my reality” one, where the post they are responding to, even if stupid, still messed with their reality and they are trying to set the world straight because they need other people to believe what they believe in order to maintain their reality.
i know in my case, if i respond to something, i ask myself: “Am I coming from a place of wanting to offer value, or am I trying to get other people to think what I think so that I can feel more certainty about it?”
something to think about.
relationships are like a spinning coin. when we spin a coin on the table, it keeps moving. then it starts to slow down. the coin then wabbles. eventually the coin stops with one side up and the other side down.
a relationship works when both sides are doing their part. it keeps movement and going somewhere. but when the partnership starts to be one sided, it is like the wobbling coin. it will keep going as long as one partner keeps working harder than the other. eventually though the side doing most of the work gets wore out. then it gets flat as the coin gets flat on the table.
