There is only one place in the Universe from which one can look that makes things seems to stand still, and that is in the human mind.

We could say that one of its functions is to create temporary, relatively stable and fixed maps.

But these maps, and the patterns and habits that form around the maps are highly conditional, depending on specific conditions for them to produce useful results.

Our sense of stable personality qualities depends on these maps, and the sensations of “normalcy” that lets us know that “things are alright” are intimately tied to the long practice and habits.

And yet, in order for us to enjoy a better future, we must begin to make habits of new behaviors and patterns that are outside our previously habituated repertoire.

This new system needs to be orientated towards a more dynamic and flexible view/reaction/correction set of patterns to be robust enough to deal with the increased range of activities and learnings that building a better success-oriented system of habits requires.

For example, “learning styles” are sold as the answer for learning and education – teach people in their prefer styles and everything will be fine.

In extreme cases, I have heard presenters claim that the ONLY way to learn is through a person’s preferred learning style. But what is a preferred learning style? Merely a filtering habit, nothing more.

When learning styles are separated from learning outcomes (“what specifically do you want to do differently when you are finished, compared to when you started the activities labeled ‘learning’?”) they become meaningless affectations, as one’s preferences may have NOTHING to do with the desired outputs.

It doesn’t matter how strongly you feel your need for knowing about a topic, before engaging the topic practically – if we’re talking about learning to swim, your desire for theoretical “knowing” is irrelevant to the act of learning to swim… and I’ve seen too many examples of people using their learning style as an excuse for… not learning.

Learning styles are the enemy of learning how to learn, as they preclude developing the necessary flexibility to address approaching the construction of method, on the basis of the what the outcome requires, rather than what one thinks one needs.

One’s “learning style” may be (actually probably is) the cause of many challenges and issues you face. When your round peg isn’t fitting the square hole being presented to you.

It’s not “them” not giving you what you need; it’s your insistence on only round holes.

Case in point, I got back late one night from work and wanted some mental chewing gum to slow the mind down before bed.

I watched a British architect look at different DIY projects for garden constructions, and how people approached them, their budgets, their thinking processes or lack thereof, and the results

.

In one case, DIY-er decided to build a small 1930s style camp trailer out of a flexible wood veneer – he’d never done anything like this before and had no knowledge of what it might take.

He was confident in his abilities to learn as he went (“there’s yer trouble right there”). Having “decided” to go this way, unless you budget in for learning “on the job”; you invite trouble.

He did not budget for it (“Yeh… I’ll be fine.”); he had a visit from Murphy. He “decided” that he didn’t need to put a frame in first to hold the structure up – DIY-er thought that the bendy wood would be fine on its own. The first rain and wind storm while he was building it ripped his construction to shreds.

You see he started from “How do I want to do this?”, rather than “What do I want at the end AND what will it take to do that?” – his confidence and competence went in two separate directions.

His preferred style was… not suitable and worse, the information that he actually needed is easily available on-line. I did a quick google search during a commercial break and found several sites straight away with extensive advice.

Our need to prepare to be more flexible is not something one can declare as “mission accomplished” having been flexible once, or a few times.

Flexibility (the ability to choose how you will go differently from what you’ve habitually done in the past, backed up with the ability to follow through) with any behavior or mental heuristic requires consistent application.

The desire to hold things still and do what you’ve always done is the opposite of developing flexibility.

We’ve already met defending the suffering in its problems form, and thinking we are thinking, and now we have the “static mind in a static world”. These are what make you drive for premature closure.

These are what crop up to persuade you that words or concepts in your head = skill in practice. These are what you use to explain away why things are hard or even impossible for you.

It’s not the world that’s hard; it’s the clinging to what was that makes it hard.

Acquiring a dynamic view takes time. Learning to coach yourself better and challenge your own witterings, splutterings, angry mutterings in the dark, and all manner of self-rudenesses and less than helpful criticisms are a start.

The fact is most of what we seem to be is made up of old programs, running on auto-pilot because we have allowed them to persist.

We can start to loosen up too tight static frames by allowing for another possibility (as a start). For any weird or obstructive, obnoxious thought or sulky, sullen infantile ‘nobody loves me’, or any “how dare they”… construct the opposite argument; create and argue the opposite view.

You have already been exposed to the question “What must be so (what MUST have occurred) in order for X to be the correct/natural/only thing to have occurred?”

This question places you squarely back into detective mind, looking for clues to the actuality of events – excluding everything but the absolutely essential. This takes you out reactions and funky fantasizing, and into constructing testable hypotheses.

We’re now going to go further.

For any kind of judgment or stinking thinking that stops you from moving forward; I want you to make the case for how the OPPOSITE is equally true.

1. 1. 1. Formulate the thought into words and write them down “I am such a total loser. I can’t get it together and I’ve tried everything. When I try, the rewards are pathetic. I hate myself and I hate my life.”
   2. 2. Assess what must be true is this statement is true, and what needs further specification – a quick run-through would be: Not one single win – ever (specify criteria for “win”) Must have tried every single method of “getting it together” (specify criteria for “getting it together”) criteria for “rewards” and “pathetic” “Hate” is an emotional reaction to a perceived condition etc.
   3. 3. Enquire about statement #1 using the considerations from #2. As you collect more information, flip the statement from #1 (or part of it) into its opposite so that the “flip” is true e.g. “So there hasn’t been a single win ever?”
   4. “No, there’s been plenty of wins but I’m pissed off about not making more headway in my career.”
   5. “Ok. So you’re a partial winner then… but not enough of a winner in your career yet.” Etc.
   6. Continue through each of your observations from #2 until you have flipped each part of statement #1 into its opposite, truthfully. Ideally, aim for total opposite, but partial opposites are acceptable as well.
   7. “I am a winner in most areas of my life. I’ve got quite a lot together but I still am not satisfied with progress at work. I’ve tried two different approaches and they didn’t work – the effort I put in didn’t come back as rewards. I actually love my life in a lot of ways but I’m finding it hard to love my work.”
   8. You might find the stinky thought shrivels up and dies right there, or you may find that you still have an issue to resolve. We’re not done yet.
   9. 4. Take the statement from #3 and ask the following questions from the point of view of at least three different people. You don’t speak to these people, but using your knowledge of them, imagine what they would say if you asked for their help and they were willing to give it. I recommend (as a place to start):
      • * a mentor or someone you trust and who cares for your welfare whom you know
      • * a close friend or family member
      • * someone you respect but don’t necessarily know

Ask from each perspective:

“What would you say I was missing? What am I not seeing about this situation?”

“What would be the best next step to take?

“What would you say about my feelings about this?”

Take note of anything useful or positive and act on it.

The beginning of flexing out of a static viewpoint (and eventually a static/fixed worldview) is to be able to move and shift yourself out of self-created bonds.

It’s first step and it’s a necessary one… more on this later.

With the stereotyping, and labeling, and forcing other people to assume roles and statuses for us, it’s important to remember that, aside from only “knowing” through one’s own partial and personal view, that each and every person, organization, or country, deity or other entity that we force to hold in a particular way CANNOT stay within those rigid bounds ALL the time.

There will be exceptions to every characteristic we attempt to staple on to them. Bad people will be nice to someone; nice people will become gnarly; media gods will fall of their pedestal and their arses will hang out.

That’s because they are human.

Even someone who creates an image of themselves for public consumption – a politician, a television personality, journalist with a picture by-line – non of them can be “perfectly” this or that 24/7.

I sometimes hear it said, “not even Tony Robbins can be “Tony Robbins” all the time.”

Can you imagine trying to be THAT, day in and day out, day after day? Imagine having to be that bright and bouncy first thing in the morning. I’m telling you… Tony Robbins wakes up grumpy and doesn’t want to “LIVE WITH PASSION” on some mornings.

The point here is that sometimes we try and live as an image of ourselves rather than being ourselves. And it makes it tough. We will NEVER be as perfect as the images we can make of ourselves.

Some might approach it, but the most beautiful, “rich and famous” people I have worked with all make themselves miserable for not being the one they see in the pictures taken after a horde of stylists and make up people and advisors have “worked their magic”.

Stop torturing yourself for either not being someone else, or being who you are. Cut yourself some slack, stop being food for the parasites who need you unhappy in order to sell you stuff and suck the life force clean out of you.

Take a good look in the mirror tomorrow morning – see it, as it is, in all its splendor – the human condition.

That’s you and me. There it is. The basic model. The same basic model that many beautiful people see as well when they wake up in the morning (cf. validating perceptions).

The more you release the need to be other than who you are, and the more you turn to what you can do (and be) for others; the greater the amount of energy you will have for turning outwards because you’re not wasting it inwards.

When you “put your face on” – put it on so that it is clear and pointed to the world – let your ablutions be the time to sharpen your intent and desires for the day rather than a meditation on how old and useless you are; how ugly you look; or how wonky your smile is.

This pattern came from a Church of England pastor who was an extraordinary story teller.
He said that he used his morning “mirror time” for prayer, when he would ask God for the inspiration to say the right thing at the right time, to be available to all, to turn from his needs to others needs, etc., etc.

What was cool about this is that more than few celebrities also pray to their god, when looking into the mirror, but the god happens to be themselves… but it’s the same pattern of “praying” (hoping/trying to look/etc/) for certain intentions to manifest themselves.

It’s a pattern with variations across cultures and it took me years before I was willing to try it.

There’s something about the mirror that strengthens one’s resolve – perhaps it’s reflecting our non-verbal congruence back to us (not that an explanation is even necessary). This is one to simply work with.

1. Cut yourself some slack. Stop trying to be or become, and just be.
2. Start using “mirror time” every morning to focus your intent, pray (if that’s a thing for you), and focus on what you are bringing to the day while you perform your ablutions.

At worst, you will have talked to yourself while getting ready for the day, but at best, you may discover a powerful new resource to bring to your life.

Thinking you are thinking is what happens when we are on autopilot,

and trying to maintain a steady state, conserving energy, running off of heuristics and seeking to validate what we have already decided is so. That’s us, most of the time.

Behavioral Economics is a new discipline that is making its mark (and is now a huge “growth industry” in consultancy) by figuring out how to use people’s heuristics and a few other features of human behavior we’ll speak about soon, to sell us more stuff, to get us to change this public behavior or that, or to change our opinions.

It’s safe to say, they are in love with the fact that we think we are thinking. They still seem hooked on the notion that there is some relationship between “rationality” (whatever that may be) and humans, but they will catch up eventually.

In several other contexts, the challenge of “thinking we are thinking” has arisen in different forms but all of them work towards restoring the ability to “shake it off” and really use our senses and our minds to improve our experiences and also our results.

The challenge of learning is that without further consideration of the ends being sought, too may ends may be called ‘learning’ that should properly be given a different name.

For example, much of the school experience is concerned not with learning how to think, being exposed to many domains of life, and learning how to make one’s way in the world.

More time is actually spent in compliance activities, and rote learning processes (coming up with the same answer as the teacher, text book, etc.).
One purportedly learns “about” things, and hence for many people learning equals getting the answer for something (the pre-determined, pre-assigned answer) rather than learning being about how to enquire and how to discover or generate answers.

Is it any wonder so many people think they can “know” by reading? Without the proper transformational analytics, well practiced and consistently applied… what is the point of filling one’s head with words?

Is it any wonder so many people think they “know” things by looking at the internet? Is it any wonder so many have confused skill and mastery with “having heard” something.

The Zen Buddhists of old believed they saw into the nature of this problem (pseudo-minds, run on autopilot). For them, one of the goals of their practice was to restore what they called “the beginner’s mind” where there were many possibilities rather than the expert’s single possibility.
We’re talking about something similar here (and, for the record, this is NOT Zen Buddhism) – that urge to closure on things, the need to move on quickly, the desire for the next “shiny thing”, etc. are all signs of the robot mind seeking to kill novelty and real possibility by “getting it” as quickly as possible and then moving on.

Why not? It’s how you became successful in school. It’s what you were rewarded for.

F.M. Alexander, founder of the Alexander Technique, had a central concept he called “end gaining”, which is the tendency of the habit body to throw large amounts of tension at habituated tasks, in order to get to the desired end.

There’s more to it than this (it is intimately tied with “half-arsed” doing, and any kind of goal seeking) but this will do for now.

It’s this… premature (pre-mature) rushing for the end, to get the goods, to close off this present thing and move on, to “know” by having words without referent experiences, etc. that we’re talking about.

The beginner’s mind is the opposite of all of this in its curiosity to experience, intense play with ideas, concepts and activities but most of all its lack of closure, of tying off, of shutting down and moving on.

In a phrase, forgoing the pleasure of immediate closure, for developing greater and greater levels of enjoyment of the process.

It’s when you are aware, relaxed and using the minimum amount of tension and effort that you can choose without fear, experiment easily, stop doing one habituated thing and start doing something new – all with ease and enjoyment.

The urge to shut down novelty or close before you’ve opened or wave away possibility “because…” are the robot’s tools to maintain its status quo.
When you have identified with the robot and as the robot; then the future is fixed.

When you inhibit the urge to closure, inhibit the autopilot reaction and “get back in your trousers” you become more free and more ready to play.

1. Choose a behavior sequence or pattern that has both duration and is interruptible (e.g. “cleaning the kitchen” vs. “crossing the street” – you’re safe in the first one but not the second).
2. Play the “catch yourself” game by every once in awhile pausing just before you’re going to do something (“pick up a cloth”, in the cleaning example). Stop yourself in the middle of beginning… and notice how much force and effort you are using, how much tension there is in your arm and body. REVERSE THE ACTION YOU STARTED TO MAKE (this is important), as you relax and remove any tensions or stresses in excess of the requirements of the action.
3. Return to the starting position (“cloth on the counter top”) and start again, this time slower, with less tension, more relaxation and no “end gaining”. Repeat this 3-5 times until there is no excess tension and force, or desire to jump to the end of the process. Just enjoying this streamlining of behavior. Then carry on (in this example, cleaning the kitchen)
4. After a period, repeat step 2 & 3 with another behavior (say, removing the mop from its cupboard)

A curious thing will happen over a short period of time and number of repetitions. After n number of examples, you will find yourself becoming more conscious of your body-mind usage, the tensions in your body, and the requirements of the tasks you work on.

You will start to spontaneously optimize your physical usage. The robot starts working for you than against you.

It’s a kind of effortless doing. Come out of the robot; restore conscious intention; habituate to optimizing use of self; … it’s called real learning, meta-learning, and it also positions you perfectly for success with the Prosperity System.

Progressive continuity of action is the key to adopting new habits.

If the repetition is there in the right frequency, and the right chunk size – not too big or complex; not too many steps at once; it will pattern and habituate to WHATEVER you do.

In fact; you’re doing it right now.

You see, the brain is continuously patterning and pushing forward in an “X+1” way whatever and however you happen to be doing it, at any time.

You are always building habits whether you think about it or not.

This might be chilling but to me it is a liberating realization because that means at any time and even in this moment you can begin working on new patterns of thought.

Whether you will or not depends on whether you have started to build our “anti-defending the suffering” skills or not.

The robot is always willing to whisper to you that something is too difficult or you don’t have the energy, and it would be better to just carry on as you have.

You see, most of your internal commentary is actually just robot-habituated chewing gum – same old patterns of gunk, same old filters, same old same old results.

You do, of course, have the choice of trying to wrestle with the robot, reason with the robot, reprimand the robot, etc. But it’s got an advantage in that most folks are identified AS the robot – thinking they’re thinking, thinking they are “this” and not “that”, worried about whether their butt looks big in this outfit, imagining scenarios of awfulness that will most likely not occur, repeating the sleep mantra “Everything will stay as it is. Nothing to worry about… except [INSERT FAVORITE UNPLEASANT SCENARIO HERE]. You can be a Master of the Universe with no effort for only three low payments of $39.95…”

Building a better success system is quintessentially about figuring out HOW to build a bridge between here and there, along with developing and refining one’s abilities in performing the necessary tweaks to make things work more smoothly towards it.

In my monthly and weekly reviews I identified it was necessary to make a major revision in my workflow, given the projects and goals for the next quarter.

It requires that I change major sequences in my workflows and in two cases, it will go against my preferred (and habitual) ways of doing things smoothly. But if I want smooth and optimized outputs in the projects, the changes have to be made.

I’m getting in front of the need to change by breaking the changes down into small components – smaller than might seem necessary.

I’ve started adding the components one at a time, every day or two – just sliding them in so as not to annoy the robot. Yesterday I added three as they were obvious and easy. I may just run this for a few days, just nice and easy, no sweat.

I’ve added them to my tasks for the day and I use reinforcement – both internal voice, and a pen-marked star on my week’s plan. The game here is just comfortably sliiiiiiding into the new behaviors without major effort.

Because they are not my preferred method, they have the possibility of turning into resistance or “robot-unconsciousness-forgetting” unless it is managed and worked.

It’s like sliding pearls on a string, one after the other, peacefully and calmly, moving forward on all fronts to achieve what I want.

In the same way as creating internal changes has to be done in a “connected up way” (think of Richard Bandler’s analogy of a flip book that has one drawing per page. You have to flip through the pages at the right, smooth and connected-up speed for the brain to make it look like the drawing is moving).

The difference between changing one reaction pattern at a time internally, and building your Prosperity System is that we are developing skills to change the whole system from within the system – most folks never get beyond the “Jedi mind tricks” stage because they don’t develop the capacity for self-change AND self-management.

And it comes down to the usual suspects we’ve discussed previously…

Connecting the dots in the right order and rhythm is also a skill. Without external feedback (output orientation, tracking, etc.); it won’t happen.
People flake out with “Yeah, I’ve got it” without actually developing the skill (“You’ve got a handful of nothing… NEXT!”), or “I understand the principle” (“Nope… means nothing if you can’t do it… NEXT!”).

This is a skill that has an endless gradient. No matter how skillful you are; there’s always better. I mentioned master musicians and metronomes before – they love it.

It’s the amateurs who tend to wrestle with it. The metronome is a calibration device and a human being as a living and dynamic system needs calibration and tuning-up frequently, in order to get best results.

1. Choose some change you know will improve your results. It can be project related or general life related but it must be something worthwhile.
2. Specify what you want to do differently. Work through and write down how the changes will influence other areas in your life and make sure that the payoff will be high enough. As you already know; detail here feeds results.
3. Assess what specifically you are doing now… the how’s rather than your opinion about it. Pattern out the behavioral details and write it down.
4. Work out and write down the sequence of behaviors and activities from #2. Break it down into component activities and then the sequence.
5. Experiment with running the first one or few steps in the process. Can you do it easily? Is it relatively smooth? Add one or a few more pieces of the activities from the sequence in order.
6. Consider these periodic additions in the way an actor or musician rehearses, working on specific segments of a piece in one session, and then progressing on to other sections, in later sessions. When you’re ready, try a “full dress rehearsal” of the change.Make any changes or amendments necessary.
7. Go ahead and change.

It would be remiss if we didn’t at least mention a powerful hack that pops up across time and cultures, and many different human activities.

The hack is learning to use randomness in order to break set behaviors and thoughts (habits), in order to provoke a change in either awareness, point of view, or even direct change of behavior in itself.

For one willing to work with the “provocation”, we have the testimony of history to the innovations, creative results, changes in choices and even new realities created through its use.

Its proven profitability is marvelous, but under-emphasized is its power in hacking habits by breaking heavily habituated behaviors but… you have to be clever to use it because… the same mechanism (in different clothing) has been used by millions to create entertaining fantasies and avoid change.

I am speaking, of course, of fortunetelling and divination.

The difference between good use of random provocation and poor use of it: Good use occurs when one is aware of what one is doing, and is willing to go with the random provocation in order to create a change of one kind or another.

Poor use is when someone uses the random provocation as another source for defending the past and shoring up the current view.

In other words, if your game is keeping things the same; don’t bother with random provocation, but if your game is finding ways around stalled or blocked processes and you are willing to go with the random provocation to see where it leads… then carry on…

How do you do it? There are hundreds of “methods”.

An old form of divination is called “Bibliomancy” – think about your issue, open your favorite “Bible” or Holy Book, place your finger on a page and the closest word/sentence/paragraph is your “divination” (or “random provocation” as we shall call it).

I’ve told you previously about a designer who would start a client design with anything he had in hand (paperclips gently tossed in the air and landing on a piece of paper) and then going from there.

When someone is genuinely “looking for inspiration” (rather than an excuse or distraction from something else) – a visit to a museum or art gallery might do as random provocation, flipping through a magazine or looking at a site on the internet might do and hence the danger to one who is self-deluding.

Any of the more classic forms of divination – I Ching, Tarot, Runes, etc. might function as random provocation (or they might function as stupidity in action – it all depends on person).

The late John Cage, avant-garde composer, actually used random provocation within the final form of some of his compositions – most famously in a piece wholly made up of audience noise over a period of time.

But he also included the use of I Ching hexagram casting providing instruction for a how a composition’s manuscript should be manipulated in its playing.

The creation of methods for providing random provocation are still being created today.

What would an episode on random provocation be without the influence of some random provocation? So, I’m going to the American Heritage dictionary and opening at random, sticking my finger on the page, and the word of the moment is “stretchy”.

Stretchy, adjective
STRETCH v. + -Y suffix
1. colloquialism
a. Having the quality of stretching

Random provocation conveys a stretchy quality (stretchiness) to our perceptions, thoughts and behaviors by forcing us to stretch the limits within which we have been thinking or perceiving a particular issue, question, obstacle or challenge.

It’s like one of those Pilates exercise classes were you are forced to stretch and stretch and stretch and stretch until you are more flexible and fit and better prepared for what comes up.

When you learn to use random provocation to create a new direction; you’re not just stretching one perception, but you are developing the capacity to stretch the way you look at problems. Random provocation makes your mind stretchy enough to move around perceptions you made too solid.

Not difficult… but you have to go with it to see where it leads.

Sometimes you get a new idea (“Pilates for the mind” – a cleverish analogy), sometimes you find something that can transform a situation, and sometimes you can’t get your brain quite enough to make the random provocation useful, in which case, you either try again or change how you are going about looking for input.

Try a bit of random provocation for yourself.

1. Choose an issue or challenge you are working on.
2. Write down what you want instead of the problem (not the negation of the problem e.g. “I want the problem to go away”) This is often the “magic change” someone needs to perform but has somehow refused to consider – what actual conditions are desired rather than “the obstacle”.
3. THEN write down what the problem seems to be. (This must be written down).
4. Choose a dictionary – either in book version or a website that will give you a random word, and run the “Bibliomancy” protocol (stick your finger in the book)
5. Now consider the randomly chosen word in relation to what you wrote down in step 3 It might present an image, or an analogy or something else – whatever comes up, WRITE IT DOWN. If you wish, you can make a mindmap of what comes up or, if you like the 3×5 cards methods we’ve used to look for patterns; these are fine to extend the “stretching”. As ideas and connections arise, write them down until you can write out whatever the stretching has provided for you. Write TO the problem statement (in relation to it). The idea is to use the provocation to force you out of your rut-think towards something more useful, or a new way to look at the situation – even a stepping stone towards what you want is a good thing.

Resist the urge to use the random provocation to reinforce what you already think or know.

Can you allow yourself to let the random provocation boot you into not knowing what to think, so that you HAVE TO properly think “from scratch”?

It’s like a breath of fresh air for the mind… if you will let it.