MKMMA -Wk 20 – People Don’t Change

(Unless they want to)

Isn’t that why we started with the coursework and why most of us that are remaining in the class Justin-to make a change? Yes, but humans are unique in their ability to willingly change. We can change our attitude, our appearance and our skill set.  But only when we want to.  The hard part, then, isn’t the changing it.  It’s the wanting it.

So, we wanted it and signed up for this course.  But what did we want?  We wanted a different outcome.  Outcome of what?  The trajectory of our lives.  So what did we do?  Whatever Mark and Davene asked of us.  Or did we do all that was asked of us?  THe old blueprint came back, kicked us and we gave up.  Of the people who started better than half give up.  Hence the title of this post – People don’t change – Unless they want to.  These folks didn’t really want to change, be different – become a miracle and hero in their own lives.  But why, they were so close to change they were seeking but will never find outside of doing the work on themselves, that hard mental labor Hanael speaks of.

Which takes me back to the first few weeks when during the course we talked about faith.  If you never had faith you would never persist.  We must have faith, gratitude, show kindness, have a plan – DMP, keep our promises of what we write and most importantly keep first thing first – faith in ourselves to make a change.

 

WK 19 – Borrowed time and the Obituaries

All of us are on borrowed time so I live this day as if it is my last.

There are no refunds, exchanges or return policies to consider and there are no guarantees so, I live this day as if it is my last.

At some point, the only time you’ll have to worry about is the time you’ve wasted.

The time wasted on relationships that are better off in the past.  The time wasted on exercise only to come home and eat an entire pizza (it was personal pizza though) and then 2 hours later a bowl of your favorite ice cream.  Time wasted on TV alone is alarming.

Why do we waste time?  We assume that we have a lot of time before us to live.  While reading the obituaries I realized that yes, any one of these people would give up everything they earned, acquired, collected, inherited including their car, house, relationships to just have one more day.

Think about one more day.  What would you do?  If after you think about it you come up with exactly what you know you would do, how about starting now?  What are you pretending not to know?  For me it is a new direction in my life.  Vague, but starting the process for me, has given me confidence and peace to know that the new direction exists.

As Earl Nightingale states:  “ask and it will be opened to you, seek and you shall find, Knock and it shall be opened onto you.”  ” He who seeketh findith and to him who knockith it shall be opened.”

Just know that you will not waste your time while you are attempting to find your bliss.

WK 17HJ – MKMMA – What is and what might be…..

They have much less in common than you might expect.

The key step in creating a better future is insisting that it not be based on the assumptions, grievances and dead ends of the past, really the cement that we talk about in the course.

The future won’t be perfect as we chip off the cement. We won’t be perfect. But we can be kind. We are still witnessing kindnesses daily? We can listen. We can give opportunity the benefit of the doubt.

The future won’t always work. We won’t always succeed. But we can be alert and seek out the possible instead of the predicted becoming self directed thinkers.

The future won’t always be fair but i can be what i might be or what I will to be…….

We can try. We can care. We can choose to connect.

It can be better if we let it.  I have a feeling saying good bye to the guy in the glass that got me to this point could be tough but it needs to be done so I can get to the next step in the hero’s journey.  Just read the obituaries in the paper as we are instructed this week so you can prepare for saying what needs to be said to your own guy/gal in the glass.

Wk 17 MKMMA – Approaching the Limits

Not the limit of our skills.  We are all inatley really good at one or two things.

Not the limit of our knowledge.  Only a paltry amount of our brains do we use as OG and Earl Nightingale state.

Not the limit of our physical capacity…Heck most people don’t even bother to get any exercise.

It’s almost always the limits of our internal narrative. Our guts. Our willingness to be kind, to believe, to develop faith, to care enough to leap.

We can’t do anything about the limitations of physics as these are natural laws, they can’t be changed, they are exact.

But we can begin today on changing the internal limits we place on ourselves.

The Franklin Makeover can and is certainly helping me with these limits.

Week 16 – MKMMA – Health and Wealth

I knew it would happen.  Go under the knife, knocked out for a minor procedure that is as common as 80,000 procedures done yearly in America.  What did I know?  I knew that faced with a feeling of fear, pain and the unknown world prior to the surgery, that I would face afterward would undoubtely put me in touch with true health.

True health is one of my ppn’s.  I would place value on eating better, exercisise and overall better healthy habits.  Now I know what true health feels like:  Pain free, injury free and overall feeling like yourself.

True health is taking care of yourself.  But further it is about feeling wealthy about being healthy.  You are natures greatest miracle.  We can take care of ourselves.  We can heal ourselves and we can feel true wealth by feeling happy, feeling healthy and feeling terrifice. I feel more gratitude today, 2 days after the procedure to be on the road to recovery from surgery.

My drive to be healthy will never again be taken for granted.  I will exercise my true health and become stronger and better than I was prior to my procedure.

Week 13 – MKMMA – A pile of index cards and the movies

With my second run through the course now at week 13,  I am now compiling my third and fourth pile of accomplishments and gratitude’s we are writing on index cards.  It is just an enormously great exercise and a real confidence booster to see the piles grow and your spirit and energy soar, as you read them often.

I put my first two piles in a box from 2013, and have not utilized them in the last 2 years.  Don’t make the same mistake.

I recommend for you to build them and grow them daily.  But really, cherish them and they will return to you the confidence, continued persistence and energy to continue in moments of despair on a daily basis.  Keep them in the car, at work, by the bed.  Mix and shuffle and rotate around the house.  They are yours forever and are a real powerful weapon if doubt and fear strike you.

The Movie I chose to watch was Door to Door.  I used to go ‘house to house’ and ‘business to business’ or Door to Door, selling general merchandise.  Attitude each day was key.  In the movie, based on persistence and patience, I  see that there is a reward far greater than having a good job as a salesman:  It is having the reward of feeling good, connecting with people and generally not feeling sorry for yourself, no matter what conditions, physical and mental that come your way.

But if you ever lose your attitude, the progression of index cards will fix that in about 20 seconds-keep building and growing!

 

 

 

Wk 12 – POA card helps dictate my cycle

A trigger prompts a cycle. And a cycle might go on longer than it should.  Like smoking cigarettes for me personally.

The first spoonful of ice cream can trigger a cycle of binge eating that you regret later. Like the ice cream I bought for my daughter but ate myself.

The silence of walking into an empty house might trigger you to turn on the TV, and that cycle of wasting time watching nothing that matters goes on all night.  I find my daughter often with the TV on, while she is on her phone.

The rush to get out the door leads to a cycle of rushing, which makes your commute a daredevil exercise, one that takes hours to recover from.  The freeway sytstem in Philadlephia is a challenge.

I realized it’s really useful to see your cycles and to work to dampen them (it’s almost impossible to go cold turkey).  However, I am going cold turkey in my quest to eliminating cigarettes.  But, it was set up as 2 actions with a time restriction action of 1/3/20,  in between, to bring me to the point of quitting 5 days ago.  And oddly, it feels easy to become smoke free 12 days before I needed to be.

Even better is to find and eliminate the triggers.  That’s surprisingly easy if you care enough.  I was thinking about this in a sit about being smoke free.  Quit TV.  Empty your freezer. Wake up ten minutes earlier, whatever it is for you…Make these decisions when you’re not in the middle of a cycle, before you get to the decision.  With the trigger gone, you might discover the cycles are gone too.  And since the 2 actions with the time restriction was written on my index card……I always keep my promises!

 

Wk 9 – MKMMA – Up or Out?

We have a choice, a chance to engage with two different environments.

Will we move up or Move out?  Move up and dig in or simply move out of taking this class.

Mark, hammering away on the webcst at thanksgiving, interactions with family and memories that could potentially spark us to somehow unwire what we have been wiring for more than 8 weeks for our new selfs.

Didn’t happen to me, but plans with friends, football, leftovers, naps and a general break from it all did happen to me.  I read, sat and did my services however I thought about getting out of the MKMMA and leaving it all behind, but that flash left me as fast as it came into my thoughts, and I’ve been around this material for 6 years now and I thought of quitting.  Hanael states we can’t control when thoughts appear but we can use the law of dual thought and affirmations to quell the thought.

There’s the ‘up or out’ competitive mindset of the soccer squad in our high school growing up. Every game you re-earn your spot on the team, or find yourself on the bench.

Earning your spot in your seat that you read in, do your sits in.  You should have to earn that spot back daily.  The guy/gal in the glass can help determine if you did earn that spot back.

However, I slipped and missed several reads this past sunday.

So what?  Keep moving up.  Get better and don’t judge yourself.  That’s what I have come to believe.  The compass not the clock of Sunday.  The magnified glass – focus, Improve.

Commitment is a choice. It’s the choice to become a bigger contributor, to stand a little taller, to make a bigger difference in your life and the life of your master mind partners.

 

Wk 11 – Executing as we pull into halfway

Faithfully executing my DMP, I have been taking a lot of data and turning it into information

It takes discernment to do this.

Most problems don’t require more data. They require more insight – the sit, more innovation – the traction points grow bolder on your index card and better eyes- at the end of the day reading the guy in the glass and really evaluating (in a good way).

I have days when I know I could do better, but I still love the guy in the glass.  Then after looking and say I love you…..retiring for the day and thinking about 1 thing I could do better tomorrow, it has helped.  Fact is, you know what it is before you even think too hard about it.

Information is what we call it when a human being takes data and turns it into a useful truth.  What we are telling ourselves is so important.  I am digging for the truth.

WK8 -MKMMA- An audience of one

More than ever, people, lots of people, hordes of anonymous people, can watch what you do.

They can see your photos, like your posts, friend your Instagram.

An essentially infinite collection of strangers are in the audience, scoring you, ranking you, deciding whether or not you’re succeeding.

If you let them.

The alternative is to focus on the audience you care about, interacting with the person who matters to you. Your audience, your choice. One person, ten people, the people who need you.

Everyone else is merely a bystander- like the screaming fans in the stands at the big game.  Like the cement (opinions) that we talk about in this course.

The mental diet is becoming easier, but in the end, it is for and audience of one – ourselves.

PS- No tv for a week was hard but rewardingly awesome.  Best of all my daughter witnessed the entire event and saw me break only one time for 10 minutes during a silly football game – avoided it to the end of the game where 3 plays decided the final outcome only for my favorite team to have lost (PennState-for sportsfans who are reading who care to know).  She will watch me finish strong today-1 week minus 10 minutes.