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PROFESSIONAL SPEAKER AND CONSULTANT

SECRETS OF
STRESS
REDUCTION 

 CONFLICT RESOLUTION

KEYNOTES: OVERCOMING CHALLENGES, "THE SAGES AND THEIR STORIES ABOUT MONEY"

NEGOTIATION

MARKETING

MONETARY
STRESS REDUCTION

 HOW TO MANAGE MONEY AND RELATIONSHIPS

 THE MONETARY CONTROL ISSUE DURING DIVORCE
 

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 Sample of Speaking and Stories

     Ghandi once said that you can't aspire for good and justice in one part of your life and then have a different aspiration in another part of your life.  You can't aspire to win in one situation and make the other party lose, and not have other losses in your life 
 

Alexander Graham Bell and his Crisis

Dr. Gordon's Presentation in Awareness Magazine

Bernard Shaw

Control and Creation

Create a win-win situation

Dalai Lama on Compassion

Frank Outlaw said

Goal Setting, Creating Affirmations Missions Statements

Based on Truth and Acceptance

State in Positive Terms

State in the Present Tense

State in Realistic and Achievable Terms

Judgment

Light is Within You

Lobster Story

Mice Story

Monkey Story

Plan Your Life

Quotation from Maharaji's book: I am that

Riding a Bicycle Represents the way  You Interact with the World

Sioux Indian Legend

The Drama Triangle

The Story of the Farmer and the Sage

Thoughts and Their Role in Our Life

Words of Henry Ford

Monkey Story
      When I was in Costa Rica,  I heard the  howling monkeys  in the forest all day long. The howling monkeys sat in groups in  the trees. They're very valuable  because zoos are interested in them.  So hunters used to throw a net on top of the group of monkeys in an attempt to catch them. The  problem was that each monkey thought the other monkey was trying to kill him, so they killed each other. Since the monkey was worthless when it was dead,  the hunters had to find another way to trap them. What  did they do? They put a hanging banana inside a small cage, and attached the cage firmly to a tree. Then the monkey would put its hand in the cage and grab its banana. The cage was built in such a way that when the monkey held the banana in its hand, it would not be able  to slide out its hand through the slats. This was how the monkeys were caught, because they kept holding the bananas and their hands were stuck in the cage. 

     All the monkey had to do was to let go of the banana and its hand would easily slip out. However the stubborn  monkey would never let go, but always hold the banana tighter and tighter.  Hopefully we are smarter than the monkeys and we will let go of our problems.  The monkeys did not try to let go of the banana  to find a different way to get their hand out of the cage.  They kept holding on  the banana tighter and tighter. 
Repeating the same behavior again and again hoping to get different results is the definition of insanity.  This became a sure way to catch the monkeys. 
 

Mice Story
     An experiment was done with three groups of mice put into a maze.  The instructors told each group of students monitoring the mice a different story.  The first group was told that their mice were very stupid and would not be able to get through the maze to get to the cheese at the end. The students were told not to worry about putting much cheese there, since there was little chance that any of the mice would eat it. The second group was told that their mice were relatively smart, and that they should put a fair amount of cheese for the mice would most probably make it through the maze.  The third group of students were told that their mice were exceptionally bred and that they needed to stock lots of cheese, for these mice would most assuredly get all the cheese. In truth, all the mice were identical.  However, it was true that the group of mice responded just as their experimenters expected.  It wasn't the problem with the mice. It was the way the students treated them, which was the way the mice manifested the outcome accordingly. The same holds true for humans; if you expect your opponent in a conflict to be uncooperative, he will be just the way you expect. And likewise, if you expect him to be cooperative, he will be so. 
 

 Lobster Story
     Do you know the story of catching lobsters? If you ever go to catch a lobster and keep it in a cage, the lobster will do anything to get away.  You will have to close the cage very tightly. However, once you have collected more than one lobster, you will never have to worry about any of the lobsters running away.  If one tries to run away, another will pull him back into the cage. Therefore, neither lobster is able to escape. It is like this in a conflict.  If you try to pull your partner down, keeping him from reaching his wishes, what will happen is you also will be unable to get anywhere either.

 
Judgment
There is nothing wrong having a conflict.  It forces us to be more creative and will help us in the long run.  In Chinese, the character for crisis and opportunity are the same. 

The problem arises from our judgment of the conflict or the situation. 

In the absence of judgment, everything is fine.  So when you have a situation that you are judging, start asking yourself, “Who am I to judge this situation?” Repeat it to yourself every time that you start going into the judgment mode, and you will see that after a while, you will not need to judge anymore. 

THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN NEED AND WANT 

Just wanting the problem to be resolved does not make it happen because as long as you are focused on wanting, you remain in the wanting stage, rather than the achieving or getting stage. 

You will not solve the conflict as long as you stay in the needing stage.  We must differentiate between needing money and wanting money. Many people feel they need to solve the conflict; they become dependent on the needing.  “Needing” sometimes creates a lot of negativity because it creates an expectation for it.  When  that expectation is not fulfilled, then more negativity is created. But when we view conflict as something we want or prefer to have solved, rather than need, then this negative attitude is no longer a valid issue. 

The solution to create a win-win situation is to use the first two steps that we discussed. First, acceptance of the situation, and then disassociation from the situation. Even if the result of acceptance does not match your idea of yourself or the business deal that you are doing, acceptance and disassociation will prevent you from fighting and exerting a lot of negative energy, allowing you to free your energy to try to build something even better with your partner in a peaceful way. In a win-win situation you do not always have to feel that you are actually winning. Letting the other party win will create a win-win situation for both of you in the long run. 
 
 
 

The Drama Triangle
The drama triangle includes: 
The victim, the rescuer, and the persecutor. When we become the victim due to our lack of money,  we begin looking for a rescuer to be a source for more money.  However, because we often choose to remain in our role of  victim, the rescuer also becomes the persecutor.  As long as we want money to be our rescuer, it takes on the role or our persecutor, and we remain the victim. 
An example of this is we buy a large house, a dream house, representing  our  “rescuer.”  However, when we cannot pay for the house, the rescuer takes on the role of persecutor.  Or, let's say we win the lottery.  We think that our life will now be perfect.  However, the problems associated with the money cause us to be persecuted instead of rescued. 

In the business world a good example is: We had a wonderful quarter or even a whole year. We think that from now on we will not have any more problems, we stop planning for the future and this profit becomes our persecutor. 

To end this cycle, we must stop being the victim and start moving on with our lives.  Being the victim can be addictive, and we want get past this phase of our life. 
 
 

Light is Within You
Now I will tell you a story about a diamond.  I hope it will become yours to draw upon at opportune time. 

One hundred years ago  a very rich family in Chicago bought the biggest diamond from a  very famous diamond dealer in New York. Everyone in Chicago  wondered  how the diamond would be transferred, and all the thieves and pickpockets came to the train station the day the transfer was going to be.  Mr. Smith,  a very  respected man, was asked to transfer the diamond. The most famous thief in New York,  Mr. James, showed up at the train station.  Once Mr. James arrived to the train station all the other thieves left because they knew that they did not have a chance. 

It was clear that the famous thief Mr. James managed to share the same parlor car with Mr. Smith. Mr. James waited for Mr. Smith to leave the parlor car to go to the restroom and then he practically tore the parlor car apart but he could not find the diamond.   Finally Mr. Smith went to sleep and then Mr. James searched Smith's every pocket, every fold, to no avail. 

The train  arrived in Chicago, and Mr.James  approached Mr. Smith and said,  “Mr. Smith, you know who I am and why I am here. I did not find what I wanted  but please just tell me where  you hid the diamond."
Mr. Smith  replied, "I will tell you if you come with me to the house of the rich family that ordered the diamond."

And indeed Mr. James and Mr. Smith went together to the home of the rich family.  When they arrived every one was anxious to see  Mr. Smith and Mr. James together. 

Then the Rabbi said; do not worry, the diamond  has been in a safe place all the time. With that Mr. Smith reached to Mr. James' pocket and fetched the big diamond.  Mr. Smith, being wise, knew that the safest place for the diamond was with the thief. 

 The answer was within the thief. 
 

Create a win-win situation
In order to create a win-win situation, you have to have a paradigm shift in which you don't think anymore of one person winning and one person losing, but a complete win for both sides.  This paradigm shift will show the other party that you are happy with your opponent getting what he wants.  The old way was to show that you are upset and not happy with the outcome, and the other party will think that they have won.  Actually what really happened is that you started convincing yourself that you were not happy with the agreement and started demanding more and more and making the conflict bigger rather than resolving it. 

When you give in on a point in the conflict or you let go of certain requests that you had, do not do it with the expectation that the other party will do the same. If you do it with that expectation, the other party might feel that you are putting pressure on him or her. You have to let go without any expectation. 

This does mean that you have to compromise your integrity.  If you feel that by letting the other party receive or get what they want, then you will feel completely wiped out. Then and only then do not give in because in such a situation you need too much energy to live with yourself. However, this situation is usually rare, and a compromise will help you and will create a real win-win situation for both of you.  Richard Carlson in his book said, “do not sweat the small stuff.” Later on he continues and says actually “everything is small stuff.” When you let the other party have the feeling that they are winning, they will be ready to go more than half way towards you because they will want to keep their position of winning. 

Ghandi once said that you can't aspire for good and justice in one part of your life and then have a different aspiration in another part of your life.  You can't aspire to win in one situation and make the other party lose, and not have other losses in your life. 
 

Goal Setting, Creating Affirmations
Missions Statements
:

What is an affirmation? An affirmation is stating what you want in your life and creating it. By creating it you give the creation a direction.  If you don't know where you're going, how can you get there? Stating an affirmation is declaring where you want to be in life. An affirmation is like a plan. If you don't have an affirmation, or a plan, then you are planning for chaos. An example is if you are taking a trip you choose where you are going, the city, the country, etc. If you don't plan how to get to a place, you'll get to a place you don't desire.  Affirmations work in the same way. Affirmations are actually looking at the end result and starting to create it, instead of looking at the past results and using that as an excuse for non-creation. An affirmation is a creation with a breakthrough in mind. It is creating a result, that in day-to-day life, you did not dream that you could create.  It is a creation of abundance, beyond imagination. Another important point is that if you create one breakthrough in your life with your financial situation, it will carry itself and will spread to every part of your life. 

Tim Stewart said, “Look at the person you would like to be or a goal that you would like to achieve, and start acting as if you are already that person or have already achieved that goal." Remember to practice acting every day as if you are that person. 

Shakespeare said,  "Assume a virtue and it is yours."  It is the same with goal setting or making a mission statement. Studies show again and again that the only way to get somewhere in life is to have a plan, to set goals, or to create affirmations. 

Napoleon Hill said,  "Whatever your mind can conceive you can achieve."
Once you create an affirmation, a change takes place in you, and you will see that everyone around you also changes.  For example, if your affirmation is to be loving, you will start loving everyone around you; once your friends or co-workers feel loved, they will start loving you. The same thing happens with money. Once you are generous with money towards others, they become generous towards you. 

The affirmation is a kind of vision that gives you the power to create whatever you want in the financial world. This vision will give you the power for future creation not dependent on past performance. In history all the leaders that created breakthroughs in the world did it out of their vision. Examples are Martin Luther King or Gandhi. They had a vision, and they performed out of their vision. So I want you to have a vision and to perform out of this vision, out of your affirmation. 

An affirmation should be made when you are relaxed, and it should be done on a regular basis.  Affirmations help you focus your energy on what you want to create.  By repeating your affirmation, you are creating a new reality that becomes a part of you.  Repeating affirmations help focus your attention on the affirmation, to bring what is desired to you. The affirmation is like a magnet creating all circumstances to fall in place to bring you what you desire. Through affirmation you can achieve your monetary quest. However you cannot only affirm without action. 

When you do your affirmation, be sure that you put full attention in your intention. If you create your affirmation without really putting your full intention into it, you will not get anywhere. 

Try writing your affirmations down. Put them on Post-it® notes, on index cards, on the refrigerator, or wherever.  Put the Post-it® somewhere you can look at frequently.  You can carry the index cards with you. This will help your affirmation become part of you. The more you express your affirmation, the more real it becomes. Repeat it frequently to yourself. 

Why is it important to repeat the affirmation frequently? Because it is important not to lose focus of your direction. It is like being in a room and you want the light on; you won't switch the light on and off continuously because then you will have no light. When you make your affirmation, be relaxed. Avoid using negative terms like don't and shouldn't. These terms bring negativity from the past into the future. You want to create a new future, without the past being part of it. 

There are four components of affirmations and goal setting. 

A. State in Positive Terms

State your affirmation in a positive sentence.  Never state it with a negative in a sentence.  For example: “I will not lose any more money” will bring you to a state of accepting losing the money.  Instead you have to affirm “I am profitable.”  This will lead you to becoming profitable. Another example is when you say, “I will not be late,” you are concentrating on the problem, rather than the solution of being on time. 

Don't say, “I will be well off a year from now." Accept where you are now. Say, “I am well off now. The situation is improving all the time.” Also do not use the word "try." Trying is not doing. For example, a thirsty person who is trying to drink a glass of water will stay thirsty. If he drinks the water, he won't be trying anymore, he will be drinking. Affirmation is about doing, not trying. 

When you state your affirmation, I want you to start a creation with a breakthrough in mind. Do not stay within the ordinary limits of everyday reach beyond the norm. If you do, you will stay where you are. The following experiment will make you understand what I mean. A scientist took a group of fleas and put them in a box. The fleas were constantly jumping and hopping in the box; however, they constantly reached the top of the box, and would stop there. After a while they got used to jumping only to the height of the box. When released from the box, they continued to jump only to the height of the box.  Some people are even in a wore position; they do not have even a box, and they are actually walking aimlessly on the bottom of the box.  Are not we all doing the same?  We built our own box. Instead of creating abundance, we create limitations. I want you to create your affirmations without your box in mind.  Create abundance, create more profit. 

Remember that affirmations are thoughts. Thoughts are energy that we can control and change whenever we want to. Your affirmations are possible. Never doubt your affirmation. You must truly believe in your affirmation for it to come true. For example, if a smoker who wants to quit  says, “I am going to quit,” but in the back of his mind he thinks, “I cannot quit,” then he will not be able to quit. Affirmations must remain positive. They cannot be stated as: “I don't want this” or “I don't want that," because if you do this, you are empathizing the “don't” rather than creating something positive. Focus on what you want, rather than what you don't want.  If you spend your time focusing on what you don't want, then that is what is more likely to happen. 

If we remember that our feelings about failure are only thoughts, then we can understand that they can be changed. This change puts us in control, which opens our mind to the possibility of being successful. Once we have an open mind, the rest will follow. We must be sincere about changing our thought patterns into a positive frame of reference. If we think, “Things are not working and we want them to improve," we are creating a negative basis of thought, which focuses on the negativity of our current situation, rather than on the change we wish to institute. We must be completely positive or our affirmations cannot benefit us. An example of doing the correct affirmation is: “I completely accept my financial situation.  I am creating excess profit in my life.” 

You should be focused on what you want in order to get where you want to go.  Here is the story of the 12 lazy people. A rich man approached 12 people lying on the beach and said he'd give a pot of gold to the laziest person there.  Eleven of the people jumped up saying, “I’m the laziest, I’m the laziest.”  Well, the rich man gave the pot of gold to the one who didn’t budge.  So remember, it’s important to stay focused. 

B. State in the Present Tense

The affirmation should be stated in the present tense, otherwise you put a distance and time barrier between you and the affirmation. 

State your affirmation in the present tense, rather than the future tense. If you create it in the future tense, then you are hoping for something to happen, rather than making it happen. When you state your affirmation in the future you create a distance between you and the affirmation. You must state it in the present tense, because the present is all there is. Here’s an example.  You are meeting a new partner with whom you plan to create a new business venture in two weeks. For the next two weeks avoid  guessing and planning where you will meet, what you will wear, etc. Instead, spend the next two weeks working on doing and taking control of the situation. It is possible that all of the things that you imagined might not work out. The restaurant might not take reservations, your favorite outfit may be dirty. Concentrate on what you can control rather than the details that you might not have control over. The same applies to your monetary situation. 

I want us to state our affirmation as if we already achieved what we want. It is important to be in the mindset of achieving already when creating our affirmation. Let us look into the future and see how we will feel when we achieve our affirmation and start living these feelings now. In turn, feeling the way we wanted to feel after achieving our goal will manifest our affirmation. 

We have to be sincere about making more money. If we just focus on wanting and needing, the affirmation will keep us in the wanting and needing stage. To get out of the wanting and needing state, we have to state the affirmation in the present tense. Creating takes place in the present. 

C. State in Realistic and Achievable Terms

It is important that we believe that the affirmation is going to work for us whether or not we believe in the affirmation ourselves. In order for it to be believable, it has to be very clear in your mind and very specific. For example, if you want to make a certain amount of money, state the amount of money that you want to create and remember to always state it in the present tense, like our company is making a profit of  $5 million a year.  Stating the affirmation and believing in the affirmation makes us feel that we are in control of what we are and where we are. 

Once you decide what your affirmation or goal is, start acting, feeling, and living as if you achieved it. 

Once a week, revise your affirmation to change the parts that are not working.  Make them something that works. If your affirmation is unrealistic, then you need to create a new affirmation. An affirmation should not be “wishful thinking.” 

Keep your goal and stick to it.  An example for this is a famous story about Einstein who was always focused on his goal.  One day after finishing writing his paper Einstein was looking for a paper clip.  The only paper clip he could find was a crooked one.  While he was searching for something to straighten this clip out with, he found a whole container full of paper clips.  Einstein took one of the paper clips, bent it and started to straighten the other paper clips.  His assistant asked, “Professor Einstein, you have a whole container full of paper clips.” Einstein replied, “My goal was to fix this paper clip and that’s what I’m doing.” 

D. Based on Truth and Acceptance

The affirmation or goal setting is done only after you accept where you are and you are detached emotionally from the past.  This doesn't mean not accepting the past.  Detachment is a very important step in the whole process.  If you start your affirmation not based on truth and ignore failures you had or lack of success, it will subconsciously bring those back. You will be afraid with the new creation that something won't work out. 

You should own your affirmation; do not let the affirmation own you. Make it part of your life, but do not let it run your life. If you get so involved in the affirmation that you forget everything else, you forget your family, you forget your own life and you will suffer even more. So you get your affirmation and then what? Remember the story of King Midas that wanted gold so much that he wished that everything he touched would be turned into gold?  He got what he wanted but could not eat or drink, because everything he touched would turn into gold. He realized how bad his wish was when the only person he loved turned into gold also, and then he reversed his wish. Therefore, you affirm with caution and integrity, not ignoring the rest of the world. 

If you want to make something happen, instead of just wanting it to happen, you need to take all the necessary steps to make your affirmations become a reality. By voicing your affirmation, you are creating the possibility for things to work without attachment to the way things did not work in the past. Basically, you are creating a new future with a possibility for change. Your affirmation is your goal.   If your goal or affirmation is too far away from the real truth, this will dis-motivate you. You have to know when you create a goal that it is achievable. Don’t get discouraged by not being able to fulfill a goal or affirmation that is too big.  Create a specific goal that is attainable.  When it is not attainable, it is worse than not having a goal at all. You have to be specific with your goal, or you get non-specific results. Your brain is like a computer, if you don't give it specific instruction, you will get results that are not specific either. You may need smaller, mini-affirmations to help you get there at first. Making your affirmation happen is an enjoyable process. If you are miserable while trying to reach you affirmation, maybe you should re-think the affirmation, making it more realistic. However, do not be afraid to create an affirmation that seems to be far-fetched. If you don't reach it, your affirmation just needs modification. Your goal should not be to make just more money, it should be having the satisfaction while you are reaching your goal. Concentrate on what you want your affirmation or goal is to be, and it will happen. 

Affirmations empower us by not letting circumstances run our life. When we create an affirmation, we start acting the way we want to become, and the result is that we become what we want to be. We act as if we already achieved what we wanted to achieve, and then the achievement follows. When you let circumstances run your life you either fall into the drama triangle, or stay in the state of waiting for things to change by themselves. In other words, you do not have control. 

The story of the mackerel is very famous.  A scientist put the mackerel in the aquarium with a lot of small fish. At first, the mackerel was constantly eating all the little fish. After a while the scientist put a piece of glass between the mackerel and the other fish.  The mackerel tried to eat the small fish and only hurt himself on the glass. After a while he understood that he would not be able to get the fish and he stopped trying. At that stage the scientist took away the glass but the mackerel learned his lesson, did not even try to eat the fish and died of starvation. 

What I want you to learn from this story is that you should not be fixed in one way of doing things without being open to test and retest the ground again. 

When you are involved with affirmation, goal-setting or a mission statement for your business, you should create a mission statement together with your employees. You do not want to create an imposed mission statement. Those usually do not work and the more you insist in their creation, the more they become unimplementable. You have to get to the point that you create the mission statement together. It is also very important that the employees or your partners  see the value that they get out of this mission statement as well as  about their input. Your goal should be your own goal.  If you work on someone else’s goal, you may not achieve it.  Create your own goal and see how you can incorporate it with the company’s goal. 

Each person should do his own affirmation and then communicate it to his boss.  If your boss tells how much you have to do, you are not motivated by it.  What I’ve seen in companies is that they have told their employees that they have to increase productivity by 20 or 25% or by a certain amount of money.  Some employees thought they couldn’t achieve this and did worse or even left.  It was therefore counterproductive.  The point is to work with the employees so that they will be empowered, not disempowered, by someone else's goal setting. If there is anxiety about what you are to produce, that can create a problem. 

Once you decide to make a breakthrough in production or in your life, stick to the goals and affirmation you have set.  It’s important to remain truthful by maintaining your values and integrity. Put your whole self into the project without thinking about what other people think about you. 

Working with integrity means working and striving to create profits in a manner that will help all the people around you: your employees, partners, and your clients.  If you concentrate on profit only and do not take the world around you into consideration, you will create a situation that backfires.  It may produce short-term profits, but it will result in bigger losses in the long run. 

Every single person needs to have the mindset of producing more profit.  The mindset itself and concentration on the goal will automatically change the profit.  If you concentrate on what you want, you will suddenly have it.  Basically, you really need to want to produce profit and to have no doubts regarding profit.  When you begin to have doubts, you subconsciously focus on the doubt rather than the profit itself. 

 John Homer Miller said: 
“Your living is determined not so much by what life brings you but by the attitude you bring to life."
 Not so much by what happens to you as by the way your mind looks at what happens. 
 

 

Thoughts and Their Role in Our Life
Stress and lack of profit are thoughts, and thoughts are within you.  You are the only one who can change them. 
If stress were an entity, you probably would have been able to sell it. 

  We become prisoners of our own thoughts; it is only our brain that tells us that we are stressed or that we cannot produce more profit. Actually the limitations that we have are the limitations that we impose on ourselves. Sometimes the thoughts of the world's greatest achievers created a barrier and prevented them from advancing even further. 
 

Words of Henry Ford
 When Henry Ford was asked what will happen if you will lose all your money and his answer was: "I will make it back within five years." He had the mentality of a wealthy man.  He came out of  abundance in the world so he knew that he would be able to achieve his wealth again.  When somebody gets his money from taking it from somebody else he will never feel wealthy because he will always be afraid that somebody else will take it from him. 
Money should give you security and free time to do what you want with your life. A lot of rich people do not have this type of security or time to do what they want. In contrast wealthy people know how to use their time constructively. 
 

Frank Outlaw said
Watch your thoughts, they become your words. 
Watch your words, they become your actions. 
Watch your actions, they become your habits. 
Watch your habits, they become your character. 
Watch your character, it becomes your destiny. 

You remember the saying, “Be careful what you wish for, you just might get it.”  After all, your thoughts become your destiny. 

How do we achieve a shift from negative to positive mindset? 
Very simply by changing our statement from: I want to be successful, financially independent, and produce a great profit,” to “I am successful and, financially independent, and I am producing a lot of profit” 
This change in mindset draws the process of achieving this goal of making your money. 

By dwelling on past problems, you are not allowing yourself to create a new future.  Today is the tomorrow you worried about yesterday.  You may have worried in the past, but if you stop now, you create your new future now. Voltaire said, “90% of our fears do not become reality." 

You never lose in a business.  You might have lost a certain amount of money, but if you learn from it, it was just the expense of the lesson. Sometimes you think you didn’t get any value from a certain business venture.  Actually, you might have gotten even more value from learning what not to do in the future than any value you might have gotten from the a partial success in the business transaction. 

In his research to create the light bulb, Thomas Edison failed 1,000 times.  When somebody asked him about achieving his goal only after 1,000 experiments.  He answered, “I’ve learned only 999 ways for a light bulb not to work.” 
 

Quotation from Maharaji's book: I am that
“Between the banks of pain and pleasure the river of life flows. It is only when the mind refuses to flow with the life and gets stuck at the banks, that it becomes a problem.  By flowing with life I mean acceptance, letting come what comes and go what does. Desire not, fear not, observe the actual, as and when it happens, for you are not what happens, you are to whom it happens." 

The best choice is to choose. To accept what we have.  If the problem has a solution, there is no reason to worry about it; the problem will be solved.  If the problem does not have a solution, worrying won't help you anyway. 
 

Sioux Indian Legend
The Creator gathered all of creation and said, “I want to hide something from the humans until they are ready for it. It is the realization that they create their own reality. 

The Eagle said, “Give it to me, I will take it to the moon.” The Creator said, “No, one day they will go there and find it.” 

The Salmon said, “I will hide it on the bottom of the ocean.” The Creator said, “No, they will go there too.” 

The Buffalo said, “I will bury it on the Great Plains.” The Creator said, “They will cut into the skin of the earth and find it even there.” 

Then Grandmother Mole who lives in the breast of Mother Earth and who has no physical eyes but sees with spiritual eyes, said, “Put it inside them.”  And the Creator said, “It is done.” 

Sometimes we are convinced that we are totally and completely right about how things should be.  We think we know exactly how to make things right; or employees don't know how to make things right.   Let us ask ourselves, are we right, and what did we get out of it? 
Think about the situation of being right and what… 
 

The Story of the Farmer and the Sage
We never know what is the reason for certain things that happen Maybe it will be for the good in the end. 
An example is this story: 
Here is a story about the farmer who lost his horse.  He went to the Sage man, and said; 
Is not this the worst thing that can happen? 
The sage man's answer was: 
 Maybe yes, maybe no. 
 The next day a horse came to his field, a younger and stronger horse. 
He caught him, 
 Then he went to the Sage man, and said; 
Is not this the best thing that can happen? 
The sage man's answer was: 
Maybe yes, maybe no. 
A week later his son rode the horse and fell off the horse and broke his leg. 
He went to the Sage man, and said; 
Is not this the worst thing that can happen? 
The sage man's answer was: 
Maybe yes, maybe no. 
The next day the king sent for all the young men to be drafted to the army, but did not draft anyone who was not in good health, or had a broken leg.
He went to the Sage man, and said; 
Is not this the best thing that can happen? 
The sage man answer was: 
 Maybe yes, maybe no. 
The point is that we have to accept the situation because we never know what life will bring us. 
 

Control and Creation
We have to remember that we are in control of every situation and we create everything in our life. Even when we are sure that we did not want to create a certain thing we might have created it subconsciously to prevent us from stumbling. Sometimes when we look back at the situation, we understand that what actually happened was for our good. 

Strong people do not let their feelings control their reaction. 
Weak people let their feelings control their reaction. 

When we blame somebody else for our monetary problems, or fight with our business partner or spouse, we use the money as a tangible object to fight over, rather than expressing our painful feelings. Remember that we can't change others' actions or feelings, we can only control our own actions or feelings. 

Not only do not blame somebody else for your monetary problems but also do not blame yourself.  By blaming yourself you fall into the judgment mode, which in turn makes you become the victim 

Remember that for every minute that you fight or argue with somebody you lose 60 seconds of peace of mind

When we have certain expectations of what others will do or will not do, rather than what they do best, we create a self-fulfilling prophecy.  When we expect a person to be nonproductive or non-profit producing, we create a situation in which we allow a person to become just that and we do not allow them to manifest in any other way. 
Evaluate your relationships: what does it cost you in the long run to be right?  It may cause such resentment in others that in the long run you will suffer more than you would by letting the issue go. 
 

Riding a Bicycle  Represents the way 
You Interact with the World

The rest of the world will go on whether or not you participate in it. The financial world is that way.   It is just like riding a bicycle.  Before you learn how to ride a bicycle, the process looks very challenging.  But once you have learned how to ride it, you don't think about how hard it looked, you just do it.  It’s not hard anymore because you now know how to ride it. 
 However, there are two ways to ride a bicycle.  The first is to do it automatically, without thinking, just doing it.  You might fall, or not ride as quickly as you need to.  You just let it happen.  The other way to ride a bicycle involves a conscious thought process in which you focus on your technique.  When you focus on the technique and loving the riding, rather than just automatically riding the bicycle, you become a better biker.  Once you have learned to love riding your bicycle, you master the process.  You do not fall.  You know how to control any of your movements with the bicycle. 

 What does this have to do with finances? 
By learning to love your financial situation, you will be able to have more control over the situation. Remember after you have learned how to ride your bicycle, there are variations based on the direction you take.  You can ride the bicycle without any direction, unaware of where you are going and where you will end up.  If you do this in life, you will spend most of your life just getting from one place to another without experiencing any profit. 
Another way to ride your bike is with direction, but without harmony with the world.  You know where you are going, but you constantly have obstacles on the way.  The world provides these obstacles, whether they are rocks, trees, or potholes, to make you fall off the bicycle.  These are constantly causing you problems, because you feel that the world is against you.  If you are like this, when you do not succeed, you blame it on the world, and then what you have is what you call bad luck. 
Or, maybe you have a direction, and you are in harmony with the world.  You know what needs to be done when you reach each obstacle, and you enjoy overcoming each obstacle.  If you are like this bicyclist, you will always be prosperous in your monetary ventures.  Love the ride, embrace the ride, and enjoy the ride. 
Love the situation you are in whether it is good or bad.  What may look to you like a crisis actually may be an opportunity in disguise.  There is a reason for everything that happens.  In Chinese, the character for crisis and opportunity are the same.  Think of your crisis as an opportunity. 
 

Alexander Graham Bell and his Crisis
Alexander Graham Bell’s mother was deaf, and when his wife was going deaf, he was very motivated to produce something with which he could still communicate with her.  This crisis was the catalyst for the opportunity to invent the telephone. Each coin has two sides. This crisis that Alexander had in his family was what made the shadow shine. Without this crisis, we may not have had the telephone. You should not be stuck in your problems; you should look beyond your problem. It was like the person complaining about pain in his feet.  The doctor showed him another person waiting in the lobby without feet, so he knew his problem was not nearly as bad. 

Sometimes, when we are in the midst of a hard financial situation, it is difficult to view the situation clearly.  We see it from our own frame of reference, rather than viewing it objectively.  We have to try to view things as an outside observer; In order to be the observer you have to step aside from the action, and only then you can observe from the outside what is happening inside. For example if you hungry and you go to the fridge and open the door without deciding what you want to eat, you might overeat. However if before you open the fridge door, you evaluate what you have inside, as an outside observer, you will make a better choice. 

Dalai Lama on Compassion
 

"True compassion is not just an emotional response, but a firm commitment founded on reason. Therefore, a truly compassionate attitude toward others does not change, even if they behave negatively. Through universal altruism, you develop a feeling of responsibility for others: the wish to help them actively overcome their problems."

His Holiness the Dalai Lama

Plan Your Life
If you want to go somewhere and you do not have a plan to where you want to go you will get to a place that you did not want to get. It is better to create a plan and you will get to where you want to go. 

The role of the observer will help you to view things more objectively.   When we try to view the situations from the another person’s point of view, we still are not viewing it objectively.  We are saying what we think that they are thinking, rather than what they actually think. We are not being objective. 

Unfortunately, many times when the problem becomes a crisis, it is hard to change the situation.  Newton’s laws of inertia dictates that an object at rest will stay at rest until forced into movement by an outside force.  So, often we need a crisis to react. 

Remember that it is more important to be interested than to be interesting. 
 

Bernard Shaw
Bernard Shaw said that if you don't like the circumstances you are in, create new circumstances.  If you see that you or your company is not creating enough money, look for different circumstances in which you can create more money. 

Ignoring the lack of profit or not dealing with the lack of profit is dealing with the problem in a non-productive manner.  Often managers deal only with the problems that they know about and they don't deal with the problems they don't know about.  Therefore, it’s important for the manager to ask the employees and co-workers to discover if there are other problems because the problem that they do not know that exist will become the biggest problems later on. 

By questioning others, we find problems we did not even know existed.  Those problems are then solved before they become major crises.  We have to accept all of the problems to begin creating more profit.  Dwelling on things that didn’t work out in the past keeps you stuck in the past. 
Remember, feelings towards the situation are just thoughts, and thoughts can be changed to be positive and hence create a more prosperous atmosphere. 

The employer, the employee, and the partner all have the same vision for the business: you all really want to create more profit. The employees want it in order to create job stability and the employers in order to create a strong company.  Because of this, try to think as one unit with a similar goal.  More profit for the company helps to create a stronger company, as well as more job security and potential raises for everyone. 
 
 ]
 

Dr. Robby Gordon
34 Redwood Tree Lane
Irvine, California 92612-2226
Tel: 949-733-0607 Fax: 949-733-1238
1-800-733-ROBBY
1-800-733-7622
Email drgordon@monetarystress.com



This document © 1997, 1998 The Monetary Stress Institute
All Rights Reserved. 

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