THE SUCCESS TRIANGLE 3 Steps to Success

by John Morgan

Overview

Here’s a discovery I’ve made along the way. Successful people have measurable amounts

of three things: Desire, Discipline, and Talent. I call it The Success Triangle.

I will define these three variables in detail and show you how to strengthen and use them

so you can craft a personal blueprint for your success. My background is in hypnotherapy

and broadcasting and over the years I have presented self­improvement seminars to

hundreds of thousands of people and coached countless numbers of broadcasters and this

is what I have discovered. Those who have passion for what they want, usually get it.

Those who have a desire to succeed, succeed! This zeal is a sensation that cannot be

denied. This sense of purpose is the main ingredient to any successful endeavor. German

philosopher, Georg Wilhelm Friederich Hegel wrote, “Nothing great is accomplished

without passion.” Once passionate, if the other two building blocks (Discipline & Talent)

find their way to the picnic, there is a long­term success story.

The Three Steps

Desire is what drives The Success Triangle engine. All novices who really want to do

something or be “somebody” have desire oozing out of every pore. It’s not an idle wish

or hankering. The radio business gets lots of interns ­ people who would love to be on­air

performers. They just want to be around broadcasting to see it, learn it, breathe it, smell

it, taste it, and touch it. They’ll do just about anything to be a part of broadcasting. That’s

DESIRE.

Discipline is what many people associate with sit­ups or something else they’d rather not

do. Consider thinking of it a bit differently. Discipline comes from the root word

“disciple.” A disciple is a person who has become a follower of a philosophy. They are a

disciple of that philosophy and adopt that discipline. That’s how I’m defining discipline.

Talent ­ Definition ­ Something that can’t be defined but can be immediately recognized.

“She’s really talented,” “that boy has talent!” are phrases we hear all the time. Ask people

what they mean by “talent” and they give more words that aren’t specific like “a gift.”

My experience shows me that talent or ability is as simple as letting what’s always been

there shine. We all have a unique collection of life experiences that have made it in to our

consciousness through our senses. This reservoir of experience can and will weave its

way into our particular brand of talent. Oftentimes it’s difficult for us to shine because we

stand in our own way casting only shadows rather than light.

How to Build Talent

Here’s a short course on how to build talent that demonstrates how these building blocks

of success are inter­dependent on each other.

Anyone who watched Michael Jordan play basketball knew he had talent. His talent was

inter­dependent on his desire to excel and his discipline to do what was necessary. It’s

true that some people may have more natural gifts than others but that doesn’t necessarily

lead to success. I’m sure you can think of someone who has wasted his or her talents.

Most novices don’t have developed talent. They may have the potential or “upside” but

their talent isn’t yet developed. What is talent? I believe it’s the ability to let what’s on

the inside out or use what you got. One reason that talent remains hidden is because

people are not drilled in, or comfortable with, a particular discipline designed to let the

talent be uncovered. We’ve heard teachers or commentators say, “He shows flashes of

brilliance.” The reason there are flashes rather than beacons is because the person is not

aware of, or comfortable with, a certain discipline. This is why talent is interdependent on

discipline. Once you are knowledgeable of, and drilled in, the philosophy of your choice

to the point where it’s second nature, this intangible called talent starts shining ­

consistently.

Talent’s coming out party will happen even sooner if you know how to get out of its way.

Getting out of the way begins and ends with ending the conversations you have in your

head about your goal. Giving yourself a pep talk or tongue lashing has the same effect –

keeping your consciousness focused on something in the past or in the future vs. now.

Just like with a walkie­talkie, when you’re talking, you can’t receive. When you take up

the limited amount of consciousness available to you at any one moment in time with

internal dialogue, you most likely will miss the productive thought that can’t pop in

because you’re trying to influence the process with a method that never works – self­talk.

TV Dinner

Talent comes in all shapes and sizes. Everyone does something well ­ including messing

up. That’s also a talent. Human beings are great at producing results. Take a world­class

couch potato. He is so schooled in the philosophy of doing mind­numbing activities that

they become second nature ­ a habit pattern. He’s so good at it he doesn’t even have to

think about it. And now the talent comes oozing out in the form of additional fat.

Traditional methods of watching calories and doing sit­ups may be successful short term

but unless this person becomes a disciple of another philosophy, they are doomed to the

same result. During my neuro­linguistic programming (NLP) training, I heard NLP co­

founder, John Grinder say – “If you always do what you always did, you’ll always get

what you always got.”

Multiplication

The key to developing talent is to become so comfortable within a discipline that your

behavior becomes automatic. You don’t even have to think about it. If you were drilled in

the multiplication tables as a child, the answer to the following question comes to you

instantly.

How much is 3 x 7?

The answer, 21, was probably right there without conscious thought. Let’s try another.

How much is 12 x 11?

The answer is not so immediate for most. How come? You drilled in the 3’s

multiplication table over and over again until it became second nature. You didn’t do the

same amount of work with the 11’s or 12’s multiplication tables. Consequently, you

learned tricks to consciously figure it out. The 10’s multiplication table was easy. You

just added a zero to the number you were multiplying by 10. So let’s go back to the

question of 12 x 11. You knew 12 x 10 =120 and if you add 12 to that you get 132. You

had to work it out consciously. If it doesn’t come to you instantaneously, it’s not

developed talent. My friend, Paul Perry is one of the most quick­witted people I have

ever met and he puts that quick wit to use during his morning radio show. I often say to

Paul, “I can be as funny as you ­ only 20 minutes later.” Paul has developed talent.

Under Siege

The problem is many people want to become great instantly. I remember taking

instruction in the martial art of Aikido. I wanted to be as proficient as the movie

star/martial artist, Steven Seagal ­ immediately! It didn’t happen. I wanted to do step 10

before I could master step 1. The key is mastering each step of the discipline before you

can master the next. If you miss a concept or key component at the foundational level,

your chances of crumbling increase. The reason for the constant, pedantic drilling in a

martial art is so you can execute the move instantly without thinking about it. Talking to

yourself about drilling won’t help. Drilling and paying attention when you are being

drilled will.

A Memorable Interview

Desire is the only building block that can’t be specifically taught. It’s like speed in

football ­ either you have or you don’t. The same is true of desire. It has to come to you.

The good news is desire is a transferable skill. I remember interviewing Rabbi Kushner

who wrote the books When Bad Things Happen To Good People and When All You Ever

Wanted Isn’t Enough. He wrote a phrase in one of his books that read, “People don’t burn

out.” I was curious what he meant by that, so I interviewed him. He told me people don’t

burn out, but rather the work they’re doing loses its meaning for them. He said put those

same people in different positions where the work means something and watch the

“Burned out” motors recharge. You can translate “Burned out” to a loss of desire. You’ll

have difficulty having long­term success without desire. The people who enter a career

only because of the financial rewards it offers find themselves at a loss if there is no

desire past the money. How many people would benefit by working at something that

paid less money if was fulfilling? I think the numbers are staggering.

1492

Discovery is an avenue towards desire. If you don’t have a burning desire to do anything,

you may need to go on an expedition of discovery. Open yourself to new areas on

purpose. Go to a bookstore and browse until something catches your eye. Buy the book

and read up on something new. Listen to a different kind of music, go to places and

events that you may have avoided in the past. Learn yoga, meditation, or take a dance

class. Put yourself out there and see what captures your fancy. You may develop a new

passion based on your expedition. The wonder exercise I’m about to offer you is a

wonderful way for coming up with new ideas. It’s a 3­step process based on how our

minds works ­ which we will explore more thoroughly throughout the book. Please do

this exercise now.

1. Take a deep breath and sigh it out.

2. Ask the following of yourself, “I wonder what I could do or think about right now that

would open me up to new adventures and opportunities?”

3. Then slowly roll your eyes in a wide circle, and wait for a response to come into your

consciousness. It could be a picture that flashes in your mind, a thought that pops into

your head, or a nudge you feel towards something.

You may need to do this wonder exercise a few times to prime the pump and start sensing

the responses. The more you do this exercise, the more responses you’ll get. It will be up

to you to act on them and find out if they are your streetcars towards desire.

This is the framework of The Success Triangle. Let’s explore, in depth, how you can

apply The Success Triangle to your life and see what splendid results you can

accomplish.

Chapter 1

“Success is the ability to go from one failure to another with no loss of

enthusiasm.”

Sir Winston Churchill

What Success Isn’t

The success most people want is narrow. This narrows them as people. They become

boring to themselves and eventually boring to others. The only thing that keeps others

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somewhat interested is that their polished act is so refined it seems to be real; and it isn’t.

Eventually it gets tired. The wider and deeper a person becomes the more apt they are to

garner the successes that lead to a lifetime of fulfillment rather than a lifetime that yearns

for those thrilling days of yesteryear.

The thrill of being the world’s greatest _____________ is short­termed. The joy that

accompanies lifelong wonderment is greater than a collection of narrow thrills. The

Success Triangle is about achieving that wonderment with a three­sided approach to life

– a homing device to use when you seem to be astray and in your own way.

If you only want to be the world’s greatest ice skater, you will find the basic building

blocks of The Success Triangle helpful in your quest. If you stop there, you may wind

up with a case full of trophies and a life full of “ice­olation.” If you use The Success

Triangle to increase your width and depth, there can be no isolation ­ only a life filled

with noticing the connections to innumerable possibilities.

Fluff Busters

Success is so fluffy a word ­ a weak word that most consider strong. Fluffy means it has

different meanings to different people and you cannot universally quantify it. In NLP

(neuro­linguistic programming) jargon, it’s a nominalization – something you can’t put in

a wheelbarrow. The word “Success” is also an ungrounded assessment – meaning you

couldn’t get 12 jurors to agree as to what it means. So the question is, what does success

mean to you? Does it mean being a better parent? “Better” is another fluffy word that

takes you down the trail to more fluff that never gets you to the core. It’s like peeling an

onion – it’s all layers until there is nothing. You may need a measuring stick to find out

what success is to you. There are so many of them depending on the area in which you

plan to succeed.

To some success means being the best. If you are defining best by statistics, then you

have your measuring stick. So if you want to be the best scorer in the in the history of

professional hockey, you break out the record books and find out who sits at the top of

the pack and begin to practice The Success Triangle. In this case finding the goal to

shoot for doesn’t take a lot of effort. But, your idea of success may be so fluffy that you

get constantly confused when thinking about it. The closer you can get to a core

definition, the more in focus the target becomes. You must become a fluff buster to get

your measuring stick.

For you to base your appreciation of your or another person's goal on a fluff word is

laying the groundwork for major disappointment. Many words are fluffy. Fluffy means

the same unspecific word has myriad meanings to many individuals. Here's another

example.

FATHER “Son, I want you home at a decent hour.”

SON “Okay, Dad you can count on me.”

What is a “Decent” hour? “Decent” is a fluff word. To the father it may mean midnight,

and to the son it may mean 1:30 a.m. The son comes home at 1:30 and the father is upset

because the boy is late. The son is also upset because he thinks he's on time.

“Son, I want you home at midnight” is specific and more easily appreciated by both

parties. Fluff words make up a major portion of our everyday language and contribute

heavily to avoidable disappointment. How can you tell a fluff word? A simple test is, will

it fit in a wheelbarrow? Can you put "Depression" in a wheelbarrow? Can you put

"Decent" in a wheelbarrow? If it can't fit into a wheelbarrow, you have a fluff word on

your ears. It needs to be broken down into terms that all parties have a common

appreciation for. Watch Court TV and listen to the attorneys if you would like to hear

world­class examples of fluff. What do they mean when they say “Hardship” or

“Reasonable?”

If you challenged fluff words every time you heard them, you'd be a busy soul, not to

mention a pain in the drain. It's not necessary to challenge every one, only those that are

important to get closer to a descriptive meaning. How often do you hear this, “We've got

to get on this pretty soon or time is going to pass us by”? “Yea, I know what you mean,

I'll get going on that soon.” “Soon” will not fit in a wheelbarrow. A productive response

to the first statement would be: “I'm curious, what do you mean by ‘Soon?’” Your criteria

and their criteria for “Soon” may be appreciably different, and the difference may cause a

lot of avoidable disappointment.

And The Hits Just Keep On Comin’

Many years ago, I was interviewing with an owner and a general manager of a radio

station for the position of program director. They told me they wanted their station to be

successful in the ratings in the first six months of operation. I certainly had a criterion for

“Successful ratings” in my head, as they did in theirs. After asking each of them what

they meant by successful, I received a different measuring barometer from each. Not

surprisingly, neither criterion matched up with my idea of successful. If I had responded,

“I know what you mean,” and wound up with my criterion for successful in the ratings, I

would have been disappointed by their response to the station's “Success.” By knowing

what they meant by “Successful,” I had a much clearer picture of “Success” to shoot for.

Charge!

Revisionist historians tell a fabulous story about the massacre Alfred Lord Tennyson

wrote about in his poem “The Charge of the Light Brigade.” In this poem, we read about

600 soldiers riding into the valley of death. This death ride took place during the Crimean

War. The historians tell us a messenger approached the commanding officer of the 600

and delivered this message, “Advance to the front.” The officer dutifully lead his troops

to the front, and they were all killed.

Lord Tennyson's poem recorded the blunders of the Battle of Balaklava (October 25,

1854) for future generations. This officer was guilty of mind reading, falling victim to

fluff, and then to the enemy. There happened to be three fronts. He never took the time to

ask the messenger, “Which specific front?” He knew there were three fronts. The officer

owed it to himself and to his men to break down the word “Front.” He mind read that he

knew where to advance and paid with his and their lives. Let's remember the messenger

was also a less than efficient communicator. Being nonspecific is a second cousin to fluff.

Fluff is a communications boondoggle. It is such a part of our communication that we get

caught up in it and pay the price almost every time. Begin to recognize fluff and break it

down, when necessary, to get closer to a common meaning and closer to success.

Warning: you’ve heard the expression “Be careful what you wish for.” Taking

something down to the core may reveal to you this isn’t really what you want. Without

busting the fluff, you may go full steam ahead and reach the target only to find out it

wasn’t what you wanted. It may be nice to know, in advance, what not to shoot for.

Chapter 2

“Many of life's failures are people who did not realize how close they were to

success when they gave up.”

Inventor, Thomas A. Edison

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Failure

No philosophy on success would be complete with out discussing its counterpart –

Failure. Up and down, in and out, yin and yang ­ there is always the other side. Failure is

another fluffy word. Many people consider themselves failures when countless others

think just the opposite.

So, what is failure? Mechanically, when there is engine failure, a car usually doesn’t

move unless someone pushes or tows it. When there is human failure, if the person

moves, it’s usually in the wrong direction. The rescuing tow truck in the human case is

recognition. You must recognize you have a result that’s undesirable. Many people look

at a failure at something and extrapolate it across their entire life. They take ownership of

failure when they identify with it. Maybe they didn’t get the result they wanted in

business and then said, “I’m a failure.” The business outcome had nothing to do with who

they are, but they thought it did. Asking what caused the business to fail will show you it

was a set of actions or inactions that caused the failure. Recognizing what actions or

inactions were inappropriate and noticing how to use or avoid them in the future is a

learning process for both future business ventures and personal growth.

Elementary School English

Failure can’t be a noun in your world. It must be a verb. “I failed to take the proper steps

to make this business deal a success” is more descriptive and accurate of an assessment

than “I’m a failure.” You can take responsibility for a failure without being one. Too

many people have too much invested in whom they are rather than what actions they

take.

Take me as an example. I lead personal growth seminars, do one­on­one coaching, and

write. I am not a coach, I am not a seminar leader, nor am I a writer. Those are labels and

definitions that are very limiting. When you use the action word, the verb, you don’t box

yourself into an identity. Using the verb is freeing. This noun limiting nomenclature also

applies to I am a . . . “Mother,” “Father,” “Rabbi,” or “Indian chief.” Defining yourself

with labels is limiting and in many cases an impediment to success.

What gives me the right to write this book? After all, I’m not a writer. The only label

that’s accurate is that I am a human being. And as a human, I have some ideas that I want

to present so that others can garner some of the insights I have acquired during my

lifetime so they can be more successful. I don’t have the right to write this book. I only

have the desire, discipline, and ability to share some of my observances so they inspire

your curiosity to apply The Success Triangle and attain successes that have eluded you.

When I get the first letter or email that says I have been helpful, this undertaking will be

worthwhile. It will be successful.

Relating to Success

How do you relate to your version of success? Do you know what your relationship with

success is? Like any relationship, you have to be willing to open it up for inspection and

not keep anything back. It’s these times and how they are handled that tell you what kind

of a relationship you have – if you have one at all.

Because some married people stay together for a long time doesn’t mean they have a

successful relationship. It may just be that they have stayed together for a long time. Did

they exist as separate islands and not communicate? Many couples do. Many families do.

Are you a separate island from your successful endeavor? The relationship you have with

anyone deepens when you are comfortable making requests of him or her and he or she of

you.

Your relationship with your success deepens when you make requests of yourself and

follow through with a promise. Let’s say you want to save $5000 for a trip to Maui. How

do you make this a successful venture? There is the simple arithmetic way of figuring it

out. Decide when you want to go and find out how much time is between now and then

and then save an equal percentage per week. That was a grade school math problem that

most anyone could solve. So, since it’s so easy how come you haven’t implemented it

yet? A start would be a request and promise. Request the following of yourself. I request

that I put X amount of money per week for X weeks beginning (date) to take a Maui

vacation in (month/year). Next, say the following: I promise I will put X amount of

money away per week for X weeks beginning (date) and will use that money to take the

Maui vacation in (month/year).

How is this any different from a garden variety New Year’s resolution? It’s not. It’s the

exploration of your relationship with yourself, along the way, which is valuable. Finding

out what excuses you make not to put the money away each week is enlightening. How

you break promises and not honor requests will reveal yourself to you. I guarantee it

follows a pattern every time. Noticing and interrupting patterns will be a large part of

your success in anything.

The Success Triangle is about interrupting patterns and harnessing the power of Desire,

Discipline, and Talent – the building blocks to your success. Each one of the components

will be discussed at length so you can have some benchmarks to refer to along your

pathway to success.

The Secret Formula

So here’s the secret formula. The Success Triangle pattern for success is Desire first,

Discipline second, and Talent last. Let’s take the Maui trip as a potential successful

endeavor. To have the best chance for success, you have to really want to go to Maui.

Maybe you have pictures in your mind of Maui from travel magazines, or remember a

segment of The Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous. Maybe someone regaled you with

fabulous tales of their vacation on Maui. Or maybe you want the great sensation you will

get when you provide your travel partner with their dream vacation. This is the first step

– passion or desire.

Secondly, you need discipline. Remember discipline means you are a disciple of

someone’s philosophy. Find someone you know who’s been to Maui and find out how

they put the trip together. It may seem more realistic for you if they are of the same

income level but it’s not essential. Taking the first step usually puts ones convincer

strategy in place. Giving a down payment to a travel agent is a great step to kick your

discipline in gear. You’ve committed money and now there is a mechanism in place.

Acknowledging your friend did it this way and noting that s/he’s had several successful

vacations to exotic places including Maui will feed your discipline. Now your promise

kicks in as you work the arithmetic.

Finally, you start to notice your talent to accumulate money. This is money that found its

way to other things every week – things you can’t even remember spending money on.

It’s sort of like the turning point when the diet kicks in. You start to notice your ability to

accomplish a goal.

Hot! Hot! Hot!

I remember the first cruise I went on. I was doing a radio talk show and my friend, John

Leslie was doing a radio talk show in another city. He started to tell me how he went on

cruises for free. He had my attention. I always wanted to go on a cruise but convinced

myself that it was too expensive for me. He told me that he had been on several of them.

Not only did he go for free but also took along family members for free, plus he also

made money in the process. I had the desire to go and hearing that I could go for free and

make money to boot fueled that passion. He outlined his procedure (discipline). He said

to go on the air and ask anyone if they’ve ever been on a cruise because you are thinking

about taking one. He said the calls would come in from everywhere with people wanting

to share their experiences and tips. He then said to be honest with the listeners and tell

them you heard that if you got 15 people to sign up for a cruise, you could go for free. If

you signed up another 15 people your cabin mate could go for free too. John then said to

ask travel agents for proposals for a group trip package where the listeners could travel at

a discounted rate. I did just that. The next day I had heard from several travel agents. I

called them and set up appointments. I told them I needed three things:

1. A free passage for every 15 people sold that would be for my use.

2. A per passenger finders fee.

3. An advertising schedule placed on my radio station.

I choose the travel agent who met the guidelines and that I felt most comfortable with. In

the commercials, I spoke about the cruising experience and how much my wife and I

were looking forward to cruising and meeting with other members of our travel group. I

kept the commercials focused on fun, enjoyment, and the group experience. We had 97

people sign up. It was a wonderful trip. I got to take my mother and stepfather along for

free and enjoyed buying gifts with the money I received in finder’s fees.

Let’s examine how The Success Triangle applied. First, I had a desire to go on a cruise

and that passion increased when I heard there was a possibility to go for free. Secondly, I

became a disciple of my friend’s philosophy. Finally, being schooled and confident in a

proven philosophy, the talent I had for communicating came out effortlessly when doing

commercials about the cruise. I didn’t know the mechanics of The Success Triangle then

but it didn’t keep me from unknowingly using it for my benefit. You can knowingly use

it. With a little practice, you become adept at putting together the building blocks of your

success.

A New Career

Another story about the secret formula of The Success Triangle – Desire first, Discipline

second, and Talent last. Many years ago I had read books on hypnosis and applied what I

had learned at parties, gatherings and in some one­on­one interactions. I was pretty taken

with this phenomenon. I signed up for college courses to find out even more. Then I was

on vacation at the New Jersey shore and saw this therapist on a Philadelphia TV station

talking about doing childbirth pain management using hypnosis. It fascinated me. When I

got home I called the producer of the show and asked how I could get in touch with this

hypnotist. I got his number and gave him a call. I told him of my successes with hypnosis

and asked him how I could learn more. He told me his old partner had relocated to

Boston and was always looking for good people.

I called his old partner and explained why I was calling. He invited me to observe one of

his smoking cessation seminars. I attended the session and told him I was certain I could

do what he was doing. He wasn’t as convinced as I was. He said I could come to his other

seminars and observe some more. I did just that. Wherever he was, I would show up. I

continued to ask questions about his procedures and learned quite a bit. He invited me to

conduct part of one of his hypnosis seminars since I had seen so many. He watched me

work and invited me back to conduct even more and more of the seminars until he was

satisfied that I could do them on my own. A whole new career was born. It started with

the desire to learn more. It got feed with the discipline of showing up and becoming a

disciple of his seminar philosophy, and the ability to do it with confidence came from

making his philosophy an automated function through practice. The building blocks do

work but we must take them out of the box and use them to get results.

Let’s examine the building blocks of The Success Triangle in depth and learn how to

use them for our benefit.

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Chapter 3

“Only passions, great passions, can elevate the soul to great things.”

French author and philosopher, Denis Diderot

Desire

Desire is more than a “Nice to have.” If you say, “It would be nice to be a successful

____________,” you don’t have desire. “Nice to have” has no passion attached. “It would

be nice to drive a new Mercedes” is a continent away from “I must have a new Mercedes

or I won’t be able to breathe.” For some people passion reaches the phobic level. I’m not

suggesting that it needs to be there. I’m just pointing out the continuum on which passion

lives. It’s somewhere between an idle wish and a full­blown phobia. That’s sort of like

describing your looks somewhere between a troll and an attractive movie star. It’s a start.

Passion stems from a want or need. The want or need is something that usually has a big

benefit attached to it. There is also a cost attached but a person who experiences passion

rarely considers the price. That’s probably best because the price consideration may put a

crimp on what you think is possible. It’s like the age­old possibilities question: “What

would you do if money were no object?” There is also an adage that says, “If you come

up with a big enough need the how takes care of itself.” So Desire starts with a want or

need that has your focus of attention. Desire can actually be felt in your body. You’ve

heard the expression, “She has a fire in her belly” – that’s passion or desire.

Many claim they aren’t passionate about anything. My guess is that’s just another way of

saying “I’ve shut myself off from possibilities.” They’ve convinced themselves they can’t

have what they want so what’s the sense of pursuing it? Did you ever get something you

wanted that you didn’t think you would ever get? How did that happen? Somehow you

poked passed your possibility wall and voila! There are innumerable possibilities. We

tend to focus our attention on relatively few. Get your curiosity in gear for other

possibilities.

Pleasure or Pain?

People either move towards pleasure or away from pain. If you are the type of person

who moves towards pleasure, conjure up the pleasant feelings you will have when you

get what you’re going after. What does it look like, sound like or feel like? Imagine those

pictures, sounds and feelings and they will act as a magnet to pull you closer to your

desire.

If you are the type who moves away from pain, you can use your imagination in this way:

Imagine the feelings you will have if you don’t get your intended desire. What does it

look like, sound like or feel like not being able to get what you want? The turmoil

generated by these sensations will draw you closer to your desire by generating actions

that will have you avoid all the pain you just imagined.

Jamie Foxx, the actor and comedian displays this moving away strategy when he told

Parade Magazine the story of his grandparents who raised and supported him by working

as a housemaid and laborer on the other side of the tracks. He said, “My grandmother had

to take a lot of disrespect. They’d call her at all hours and say, ‘Get over here!’ It used to

burn me up. They’d call my grandfather at 5 in the morning, when he’s 79 years old, and

say, ‘We need you here!’ I hated that. I decided, ‘That won’t be me’.”

Remember this: Imagination is the force of creation.

You Can’t Talk Yourself Into It

Passion is the fuel that is still there long after the tank reads empty. Passion generates

energy. It’s a focus of attention that creates possibilities. Passion entertains you. There

are many who preach to think positively. That implies you have some control. Thinking

is thinking. The label positive or negative is something we add after the fact. It’s just the

way our brain works. Thinking goes on without our permission. Thoughts pop into our

consciousness from out of the blue. The person who tells you to try and control what

flavor pops in is uninformed about how the mind works. It sounds wonderful and it’s

snake oil. It’s more useful to just notice that a thought popped in whether positive or

otherwise. Just by putting your attention on a thought without judging it allows it to flow

in and flow out. When you put up a resistance to any kind of thought, it puts up a

resistance to leaving. It hangs around preventing another thought from your infinite

reservoir to pop in. When you show a preference for a thought, it begins to occupy your

consciousness and it also prevents other thoughts from streaming in. When you dam up

the stream, you dam up the hydro­power that will continue to fuel your passion. It’s like

the famous philosopher, Alan Watts said in his lectures, “If I think all the time, I won’t

have anything to think about except my own thoughts. Now, that would leave me high

and dry, and I would become like a library to which the only books being added were

books about the books that were already in it.”

Lost in Love

Did you ever notice when you’re passionate about something many other considerations

take a back seat. Most people are tired at the end of the day and prepare for sleep. The

person who’s passionate can go for hours on end without being tired. They can work

through scheduled meal times and forget to eat. Passion must enter your life to be

successful. You may get to enjoy some success without passion but it won’t last. You

won’t enjoy the ride without passion. You are the living dead without passion.

Most people without passion are boring to themselves and to others. Their possibility

quotient is so narrow that the same patterned thoughts keep coming back. It’s similar to

hearing the same joke for the 20 th time. It’s just not funny anymore, yet we keep telling it

to ourselves expecting to be entertained.

Passion is not consciously arrived at. The sensation we call passion arrives before we put

the label on it. You cannot think your way to passion. It is a process that goes on behind

the scenes. It is foundational and indefinable. Passion is discovery and instability. Once it

becomes stable, it becomes stale. We limit it to too few things. The more areas of our

lives we can feel passion for, the more life we have. Passion is expectation every minute.

Passion is curiosity and never knowing. It’s a constant process of discovery. If we ever

figure something out, passion wanes. A marriage never loses passion. People lose

passion. We lose by knowing all there is to know. Passion is a fire in the belly – not an

ulcer. Passion is not a thought process; it’s a sensation. It’s always kinesthetic. That

kinesthesia is fertilized by curiosity. Observe someone who has a lifelong passion. Notice

how curious they are and the discovery they experience. It’s ongoing. They never figure

it out. They just keep wondering and keep the fire burning. Passion is somewhat like Jell­

O. It’s any color you want, soft, sweet, pliable, moldable, changing form, and

everywhere. It’s transparent and it’s fun. If it becomes hard, it’s no longer Jell­O and it’s

no longer passion. It’s inexpensive and you don’t need to spend a lot of effort chewing it.

It’s holographic. Passion is a thirst that’s whetted but never quenched.

Enthusiasm

Enthusiasm is another word for passion. My dear Greek friend, Paul told me

“enthusiasm” comes from his language and literally means “God in you.” Without getting

religious, there’s a lot of God in everyone; only it’s occluded by our patterned way of

thinking.

Curiosity will get you out of your patterns and allow more of what’s on the inside out –

Ability – and continually feed your enthusiasm. Most people will tell you their God is

responsible for the change of seasons. Wouldn’t it be productive to say there is one God

or animating force, or universal law that we call a different name and worship in a

different way that’s behind this seasonal phenomenon? You didn’t come out of the womb

with a particular religion; you may have been trained in one. If you grew up in

Afghanistan, chances are you were raised as a Muslim. If you grew up in Ireland, you

were probably raised Catholic or Protestant. In India, you may be a Hindu or a Buddhist,

in the USA a Christian, in Israel, a Jew. The label has become important to you and there

is no quibble about that. Just remember that the God who changes the seasons is the same

force that’s in everyone no matter what the name or method of worship chosen.

Recognize that “God in you,” no matter how you define it, is necessary for success.

Quoting Ralph Waldo Emerson, “Nothing great has ever been achieved without

enthusiasm.”

How Do I Get Passion?

Acting enthusiastic can generate an enthusiastic state of mind. In some cases putting your

body into another physiology is enough of a catalyst to prime the enthusiasm pump.

Observe someone you consider to be enthusiastic. What are they doing with their body?

Posture? Movements? Gesturing? How are they breathing? Speaking? My guess is if you

observe many different people who are enthusiastic, you will find degrees of similarity in

their physiology.

So let’s do a quick exercise. Put your body in the position it would be in if you were

enthusiastic about anything. Breathe like you would breathe if you were enthusiastic.

Gesture like you would if you had enthusiasm. Speak at the pace you would speak if you

were enthusiastic. Just by adopting the physiology, you put yourself in an enthusiastic

posture. These subtle body changes will begin to recharge what you call enthusiasm.

Once I was addressing the topic of exercise during a weight loss seminar and these words

just popped out: “You can’t talk your way into walking, but you can walk your way into

talking.” It doesn’t work the other way around. You will not talk yourself into a new

behavior. Talking to yourself is a never­ending loop that always takes you to the same

place – the same place! Think of it this way – behavior may generate words but words

won’t generate behavior. Words are always the caboose and behavior is always the

engine. We act, and then we explain. It’s the way our brains are wired. You may be

wondering wasn’t it initially a verbal thought about behavior that actually started the new

behavior? No, the thought was a conscious comment on behavior that had already formed

unconsciously. Consider the overweight person who finally “decides” to lose weight. We

get caught up in the trap that his internal chitchat was the catalyst for the behavior. It

wasn’t. The behavior came before he had the words that told him he decided. Behaviors

precede their description and thoughts are afterthoughts.

Your Reservoir is Deep

You can generate behaviors you already own but that have become dormant. We have 5

senses – sight, sound, feeling, smell, and taste. We represent the world inside our head

mainly with pictures, words, and sounds, which generate feeling responses (sensations) in

our body. What pictures can we conjure up in our minds that represent enthusiasm? What

would we have to see in order to feel what we label enthusiasm? What would we say to

ourselves, or have others say to us that would generate dormant enthusiasm? What

sounds generate enthusiasm? For some it’s the “Rocky” theme; for others it’s their

national anthem. Where specifically does the feeling register in our body that we are

calling enthusiasm? We can remember pictures or sounds that cause the feeling response

we call enthusiasm. If we can’t remember them, we can make them up. Our nervous

system doesn’t know the difference. It just produces the enthusiastic sensation with the

proper stimulus whether real or imagined. If you were in the jungle and you heard a roar

and imagined there was a ravenous lion behind you, your nervous system would respond

with an appropriate sensation in your body even if it turned out only to be a tape

recording of a roaring lion. More about this topic will be covered in the chapter on

Talent.

All of this leads to this maxim – to be enthusiastic, act enthusiastic. Here’s an exercise I

do in many of my seminars. I ask people to fake a yawn. Within seconds the fake yawn

turns into a real yawn. A moment before my suggestion no one was yawning. The acting

out of the behavior was engaged in and the real thing followed. The same is the case with

enthusiasm or being excited, or passionate.

Snapshot: Success won’t be around long without passion. It is the starting point of every

successful endeavor. If you don’t have it, make it up. Ability gets smothered without

passion. Discipline without passion is work and who wants to work? If you’re designing

a life, make sure you start with passion.

Chapter 4

“The person who makes a success of living is the one who see his goal steadily

and aims for it unswervingly. That is dedication.”

Movie producer, Cecil B. DeMille

Discipline

Discipline can be thought of as a “Way.” There are a lot of disciplines (ways) and many

of them can lead you toward the Promised Land. There are many people who can serve as

models of success. What way are they following? Find out, especially if they’re doing

what you want to do or are the type of person you want to be like. I promise you there is a

“Way book” they are following even if it looks free form on the surface.

If passion is the match that lights the fuse, discipline is the fuse that leads to an explosion

of talent or ability. Find a philosophy that you can become a disciple of whether it’s

someone else’s or your own. The repetitious training in the philosophy of your choice is a

necessary ingredient for your ability to manifest itself consistently. You can go from

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unconsciously incompetent to unconsciously competent when you apply yourself to

someone’s discipline. Did you ever notice people have different ways of tying their

shoes? The outcome looks the same in the end but the process is often different. Here’s

something I learned during my NLP training. There are four stages of becoming

competent at something. They are:

1. Unconsciously incompetent

2. Consciously incompetent

3. Consciously competent

4. Unconsciously competent

Here's an example: When learning to tie your shoes, you had no experience with shoe

tying, and it appeared foreign to you. You were unconsciously incompetent—no

experience in the files. After observing your model (e.g., parent ) tie his or her shoes or

your shoes for you and encouraging you to make the attempt, you found yourself to be

consciously incompetent—the specific motor skills had not yet developed. Then came

that glorious day when you could do it all by yourself. It took all your conscious attention

to get it done. You could now do it. That's conscious competence. Finally, you evolved to

the point where you could direct your conscious attention elsewhere while

simultaneously tying your shoe. That's when it becomes part of us. We are then

unconsciously competent. It’s now patterned behavior. We now own that ability or talent.

You are now fully able to tie your shoes with the best of them. The discipline may have

been different at your best friend’s house, but the outcome is the same – you can both tie

your shoes without thinking about it. That’s the purpose of discipline – so you don’t have

to think about it.

I Stink When I Think

Thinking always gets in the way. Throwing the perfect pitch to an exact location has

nothing to do with thinking. It has to do with mechanics. Thinking gets in the way of the

skills you have developed. Discipline is about practicing and practicing and practicing

some more. A successful body builder doesn’t change his routine willy­nilly. He does the

same movements with the same precision over and over and over again.

If you’re beginning a new discipline (weight loss, smoking cessation, tai chi, accounting

procedures), it takes about three weeks on average for the discipline to show signs of

ability. These are the reports I get from people who have begun and become successful

with a new way. There are elegant examples to the contrary but three weeks seems to be

the time frame to begin seeing light at the end of the tunnel.

Spit Shine

I remember being in basic training in the Navy. They gave us a pair of boots made from

very cheap leather that was very grainy on the surface. Our mission was to “spit shine”

these boots. This is a painstaking task. The discipline is easy to understand, more

challenging to do. The reason it seems so challenging is because results are not

immediately forthcoming. People begin to wonder if this rote method is going to work.

You begin by applying polish to the toe of the shoe and then dipping your application

cloth into water and rubbing the toe of the shoe in a circular motion. You then dip the

cloth back into the polish and put some more polish on the toe. You keep alternating the

application of water and polish in a circular motion until you see a portion of the toe

begin to shine like patent leather. It seems to take forever. You then finish the procedure

until the whole toe area of the boot has that shine. Your objective is to pack the holes in

the grainy leather with polish and then buff it to a high gloss. It’s painstaking and time

consuming and it works. There are other ways to spit shine all with the same result – a

high gloss shine. The person who came up with this method had to be very patient and

very trusting of his philosophy. All you need is patience and practice. The trustworthiness

of the method has already been established when you adopt someone’s proven discipline.

Inside The Box

One of the tritest phrases that has ever become a part of our language is, “Think outside

the box.” The idea behind the phrase is most worthwhile but most people think of it as

some kind of shortcut that absolves them of any work. You can’t go outside the box until

you know what’s in the box. Paraphrasing Robin Williams, (not the comedian) the

graphic design guru, “Graphic design has hard and fast rules. But some of the most

appealing designs break some of the rules. I will guarantee you that the gifted graphic

design artist who broke the rule knew which rule they broke and for what reason.” It’s

necessary to know the rules before you break them. Find out what’s inside the box before

you go meandering outside or you might just get left out.

Patterns Run The Show

There are many weight loss disciplines to follow – all with the same promised result –

less weight. If you look at all the dieting methods, there seems to be one underlying

principle that most agree on ­ You must burn more calories than you take in. If that’s

accurate, there’s a lot of window dressing associated with dieting seeing as there’s a new

diet plan touted every month in magazines. This is the kind of discipline that’s short­

lived. Yes, you may follow what they say to do, under duress; to achieve the outcome

you want but your chance of long­term success diminishes unless the discipline is one

you can automate. Unless this dieting regime becomes second nature – meaning you

don’t have to think about it – it will fail. So the big question is how do you make it

second nature – a new pattern? I mentioned how we learned the multiplication tables

earlier. That was pure rote. That alone may not work when you have emotional patterns

in the way.

Eating has a lot of history for everyone. There are many ethnic cultures where eating a

large meal is the main focus. You are encouraged to eat. “Waste not, want not” and “Eat

everything that’s on your plate” are examples of philosophies we are fed. These

disciplines become patterned and run behind the scenes. We may reason with ourselves

that we are too heavy and are carrying too much fat, but that reasoning always points us

to the diet of the month. If the dieting method was so good how come we need a new one

every month? By and large, most diets are effective. How come they cannot penetrate our

patterned way of doing things over the long haul? The patterns we run are not logical and

do not respond to logic. They are purposeful. They were built for a purpose. That

purposeful pattern will run your entire life unless you learn to outgrow it. Rote and

reasoning will only run a sprint. If you want to run the marathon, you’ll need rote and

recognition.

Recognition & Updating

Recognizing that your brain is running a pattern is one step closer to being successful.

These underlying patterns associated with eating do not care if you eat your way to an

early grave. Remember, they are not logical. These patterns are purposeful and they will

run forever unless we start to recognize them, interrupt them, and ultimately update or

outgrow them. Here are a couple of examples of updating and outgrowing.

Puppy Chow

Russian experimental physiologist, Ivan Pavlov referred to this updating phenomenon as

“Translation.” As has been well documented, his German shepherd dogs salivated at the

sight and smell of food. Pavlov paired the sound of a bell to feeding time. After a few

repetitions, he would just ring the bell and the dogs would salivate without any food

being present. Then “translation” took place. Here's how. Without attending a seminar,

the dogs began to salivate when they heard their feeder's key going into the lock. Then

they began to translate and salivate when they heard the feeder coming down the hall to

the kennel. Eventually they began to salivate at the time of day the feeder regularly came.

Their brains were able to translate their response to a different stimulus. Human beings

have the ability to translate and update a response to any given stimuli. Translation gives

new meaning to, “It’s lunchtime!”

Ho, Ho, Ho!

When I was in the first grade, I attended a Christmas party my father's union had for their

members and families. I remember going up and sitting on Santa's lap and describing all

the things I wanted for Christmas. It was a great sensation knowing I had talked to Santa,

getting assurance he would bring the toys I requested. We went to the party again the

following year. There was Santa again. Only this time, he began to resemble my father's

friend, Mr. Ferguson. Even though I sat on his lap and told him what I wanted, I did not

have the same sensation I had the year before. By the time I reached third grade I no

longer sat on Santa's lap at the Christmas Party but encouraged my little brother to do so.

You could see the sugarplums dancing in my brother's head, and that brought a smile to

my face. By the time I was a teenager, my younger sisters were going to the Christmas

party and sitting on Mr. Ferguson's lap. I could see their delight knowing Santa had heard

their requests. It was another pleasurable moment for me.

No one ever told me Mr. Ferguson was playing Santa Claus. He wore the same costume

every year. He was the same person every year. He was the stimulus. My response

changed from glad, to unsure, to no way, to vicariously pleasurable without me even

knowing how the changes happened. My mind had the ability to update my response to

the very same stimulus and so does yours. It begins with noticing you are running a

pattern. Keeping with the dieting example, let’s pretend you had a filling dinner and 15

minutes later you’re in front of the refrigerator or cabinet wondering what looks good.

Everyone watching this movie knows you are not physically hungry but yet your mind is

running a “What looks good?” pattern. The pattern may stem all the way back to your

childhood. That’s not important. What is most important at this juncture is to notice

you’re running a pattern regardless of the origin. You may just say to yourself, “I’m

having the ‘What looks good conversation’ in my head.” Or, have the recognition that

“I’m having the picture of an ice cream sundae pop into my mind.” This recognition is

the first step and sometimes the only step needed to update the pattern. If you start

recognizing this pattern every time it runs, it will run less often and eventually stop. It

takes some practice and patience and the results seem magical. There is no need to judge

the pattern; only notice it.

After you become adept at noticing a pattern while it’s running, there are some other

things you can do to help the updating process along. Here are two exercises that are easy

to do and extremely effective.

The Wonder Of It All

The “Wonder Exercise” is one I introduced at the beginning of the book. It’s a three­step

process. The key to its effectiveness is doing it midstream ­ meaning you do the exercise

when you notice you’re beginning to run an undesirable habit pattern. First, you take a

deep breath and sigh it out. Second, you ask something like the following of yourself. “I

wonder what I could do or think right now that would be more productive than this?”

“This” being the unproductive pattern you are in the middle of. Finally, you slowly roll

your eyes in a wide circular pattern and wait for a signal. To prime the pump, initially

you may have to do the “Wonder Exercise” a few times to start getting signals. The

signals may come in the form of a picture, a sensation, or an internal thought. You will

get a signal. The key is to act on the signal you’ve gotten.

By doing the “Wonder Exercise,” you have searched your memory banks for another way

to go, rather than consciously coming up with the same patterned way that has a history

of failure. This will generate a fresh, productive direction. It all begins by interrupting the

pattern while it’s going on and following through by wondering.

Wiring

How can this exercise be effective? It has to do with how we are wired. There is brain

tissue at the end of your eyes. When your eyes move to certain physical areas, you are

accessing a certain portion of your brain. The work of Bandler and Grinder, the pioneers

of NLP (neuro­linguistic programming) codifies for us where the eyes go to access

pictures, sounds, and feelings. A short primer is in order.

When your eyes go up or defocus in front of you, you are accessing pictures

(remembered or constructed). When your eyes go lateral to one side or the other, you are

accessing sounds, words, or conversations with others (remembered or constructed).

When your eyes go down and right, you’re tapping into your body’s physical sensations.

When the eyes go down and left, you are having an internal conversation with yourself.

These eye positions are accurate for right­handed people and most left­handers. Some

left­handers are a mirror image of the eye positions ­ meaning they are opposite. It's easy

to tell. Ask them what their social security number is backwards. If their eyes go up and

left, they are seeing the number. If their eyes go lateral left towards their ear, they are

hearing the number. If their eyes go down and left, they are saying the number to

themselves. If their eyes go the opposite direction, they may be left­handed.

Let’s go back to the eye roll. When you roll your eyes slowly in a circular fashion, you

access your storehouse of visual images, sounds, and stored feeling responses that are out

of conscious awareness. When we get stuck, we usually only go to the patterned places in

our brain for solutions ­ coming up with the same ideas that didn't work the last time.

Doing this exercise is like going through an old picture album. You see people and places

that you haven't seen or even thought about in a long time. Our brain stores unlimited

amounts of sensations, pictures, and words (sounds) that sit outside consciousness. Think

of your first kiss. Before I suggested that, it was sitting outside of consciousness. Now it

isn't. When we do the eye roll, we give ourselves access to information we wouldn't have

thought of using our preferred solution pattern. By doing the exercise, we cycle through

pictures, sensations, and sounds. We unearth bits and pieces from each sensory database

to produce a mosaic that we would not have come up with without doing the exercise.

That's why the wonder portion is so important. Wonder is a magical word that gets you

wondering. I invite you to pay attention to what happens when I ask the following

questions:

I wonder how your favorite sports team is going to do next season?

I wonder if the weather is going to cooperate for the special event you’re planning on

attending? I wonder if you'll ever hit the lottery?

If you were paying careful attention, you probably noticed you were wondering right

along with me as you read those questions. You are giving your brain some specific

criteria to search for when you wonder about more constructive things to think about, or

adventurous things to think about.

10 Second Exercise

Here's an exercise that takes 10 seconds which seems like it could never work and it does.

1. Take your eyes up and make a picture of something ­ either a remembered or

created picture. It can be of anyone or anything. It doesn't matter.

2. Take your eyes down and left and hear an external sound.

3. Take your eyes down and right and feel a sensation going on in your body. It

could be as simple as your shoe pressure against your toe.

Then just close your eyes for about 5 seconds.

That's it! You're done.

How is this exercise effective? The main purpose is to get you out of your head ­

meaning you may be inside your head making pictures that are giving you rotten

sensations or saying stuff to yourself internally causing unproductive feelings in your

body. You may have feelings or internal sensations causing unproductive pictures or

internal conversations to come up. The point is you are involved with grooved patterns

when you are in your head. You are not paying attention to other events actually going

on. You are in your head ­ more pointedly, in a trance. Did you ever drive by your regular

exit while you were lost in thought? That's commonly called "highway hypnosis." This

exercise also gives your brain other sensory data to access the next time you run the

pattern. There will be new pictures, new sounds, and new sensations available, not just

the same old stuff.

This clean up your thinking exercise is one I learned by listening to a tape from Jerry

Stocking. I met Jerry in 1988 at a seminar we were attending conducted by another gifted

man named Dave Dobson. Jerry writes books and conducts seminars and is an

exceptional teacher. The 10­second exercise came from one of Jerry's students.

Another story

One more story on outgrowing a pattern . . . I changed schools in the third grade. The first

day I joined my new class; the teacher put me in front of the group and introduced me. I

don’t know if you can remember how embarrassing it can be to be a third grader in front

of a roomful of strangers. She said, “Class, say hello to John” and they responded like

parrots. I thought the torture was over until she asked me to tell the class something about

myself. I can’t remember a word I said but I do remember seeing a little girl over to the

right smiling at me as I rambled on. I hooked on to that smile like a life preserver. That

girl’s smile got me through that uncomfortable time.

My mind built a purposeful pattern that day that I labeled “I like her.” I made no secret

that I liked her. I made offers to carry her books to no avail. She was nice to me but never

agreed to my requests. I liked her in the third grade, the fourth grade, the fifth grade, the

sixth grade and the seventh grade. Finally in the seventh grade she agreed to go to the

movies with me. We sat in the back row and shared innocent puppy kisses. It was heaven.

I bought her a friendship ring and gave it to her. You probably won’t believe what she did

three days later. She gave me back the ring and didn’t want to be my girlfriend anymore.

I was heartbroken. I still liked her.

After the eighth grade, we each went off to different schools. She went to a school for

girls and I went to an all­boy’s school. We would see each other at church, at dances, or

parties and the interaction was always pleasant but she didn’t want what I wanted – for us

to be “An item.” Finally, she agreed to one of my requests. She was my date for the

senior prom. It finally clicked. We were a couple. We went to dances, drive­in movies,

and the like. It was pure ecstasy! The girl I had been waiting for since the third grade was

finally mine. You probably can’t guess what happened next. Two weeks later she

dumped me. I was an emotional wreck. I couldn’t eat; I couldn’t sleep or concentrate on

my school work. Here’s the good news. Soon after this trauma I met someone new and

life got happy again. Now let’s fast forward to a year later. I’m standing in a drug store

perusing the bookrack when out of the corner of my eye I spy my old girlfriend. I

remember looking at her and asking myself, “John, what did you ever see in her in the

first place?” Of course, she made the same discovery about me a year earlier. How could

something that was so important shift rungs on the ladder that completely? I outgrew the

pattern that kept me stuck on her. I don’t know how it happened but I did come away

from the experience with the recognition that there is a part of us that knows how to

update our patterns without us knowing how. The exercises offered in this book facilitate

this outgrowing or updating process.

One final note on discipline: I’m confident most people can walk and chew gum at the

same time. I’m not sure most people can work on more than one discipline at a time and

be effective. I have experienced being a disciple of many disciplines at once and the

results have always been watered down. Maybe you’re the counter­example but it’s my

contention that most people would benefit greatly by becoming a disciple of one new

philosophy at a time.

Chapter 5

“Getting ahead in a difficult profession requires avid faith in yourself. That is

why some people with mediocre talent, but with great inner drive, go much

further than people with vastly superior talent.”

Sophia Loren, actress

Talent

Talent is the byproduct of desire and discipline. In boxing parlance, it’s the two jabs and

right cross combination. Talent, in short, is getting out of the way of your own light so

that you’re not boxing with shadows. We stand in the way of our own light’s ability to

shine. This light is our talent, our ability. It is the final side of The Success Triangle. The

light is always there, it just needs to be coaxed out. The coaxers are Desire and

Discipline.

Trust the Program

Talent is doing something with ease. I’m not saying when people display their talent it is

easy. My assertion is they are doing whatever they do with an ease that eludes those who

are trying. Talent isn’t trying. Talent is doing and without much conscious thought.

Talent is an automated program that only needs a goal from consciousness – not a set of

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directions. Those directions are encoded in the program. Once we’ve done the set up

work, it’s time to trust the program. You don’t question the program that delivers your

ability to walk. You don’t give that conscious attention because you don’t have to. You

may give it some conscious attention if you want to change your walking pattern or

relearn it in the case of a medical condition such as a stroke. The conversations in your

head about how much you want this ability are actually prolonging its arrival. As

mentioned earlier, a great baseball pitcher only needs the name and location of a pitch.

The successful placement, as well as the arc and velocity of the pitch, is not done

consciously. He needs the same mechanics every time. You won’t talk your way into

mechanics. You practice your way there. Once the practice is done, it’s time to take the

test and just throw the ball. Mechanics and chitchat are natural enemies. If you are

successful doing one, you aren’t successfully doing the other.

Savvy

Know­how is a subset of ability. Another word for know­how is savvy. Many people who

develop talent don’t have the know­how or savvy to use it productively. This throws us

back to the basics of The Success Triangle. You now need the desire and discipline that

will get you to savvy. Find a model of success with your ability level and find out how

they are acquiring their savvy and become a disciple of their philosophy. You are now

applying The Success Triangle at a higher level. It’s like any major league sport. The

rules are the same as in the minor leagues but you’re on a different level now. You

acquire savvy at this level. All your efforts before arriving here were geared towards

letting your ability shine. Now the game is to continue doing the things that got you here

and make the most of your ability by acquiring savvy.

A Boxing Lesson

The older heavyweight boxers are models of savvy. To beat stronger, faster, and younger

opponents, they need some wily ways. They learn how to box a minute per three minute

round to pace their stamina. They know the judges historically pay more attention to the

end of a round than they do to the beginning or the middle so they box some in the

beginning, some in the middle and turn it on towards the end of a round especially in the

middle or later rounds of a fight.

Younger fighters are generally impatient and generally want to go, go, go! Seasoned

boxers are an example of savvy. Know­how or savvy is simply knowing how to get the

job done. It’s one thing to have the ability to do a job, but it’s getting the job done that

gets you to be successful. This is the polish that is the hallmark of a pro. Savvy is not

purchasable. It just shows up like unexpected rays of sunshine on an overcast day.

Application of The Success Triangle can guarantee the light will shine through; the only

question mark is “when?” How soon the light shines is dependant on how much attention

you give to your quest for success. The consistent application of the exercises in this

book will accelerate the timetable.

What’s Controlling You?

How deep is a well? You could easily find out by tying a rock or sinker to the end of a

string and wait until it hits bottom. The same is true of the ocean—just more string and a

heavier sinker. What about the universe? Different story? You bet! The universe has no

limitations, no boundaries. When it comes to resources, we have a universe available to

us, but we're too busy measuring the depth of the well.

We limit ourselves by what we believe we can or cannot do.

Sometimes we transcend these limitations in our dreams and daydreams, but that's “make

believe” and not really useful when dealing with “reality.” Or is it?

What is our personal reality? It’s is a belief. It's what goes on between our ears. It's what

we picture, talk to ourselves about, feel, smell, and taste. These senses, and how our

learned brain patterns make use of them, define what our personal reality is ­ our beliefs.

What would happen if you could tap into resources and alter your reality so you could

have a little more enjoyment out of life and have your talent develop more rapidly? Have

you ever been “down in the dumps” and all of a sudden a song came on the radio that

took you back to a time in your life when things were going delightfully well? Your

response to that song altered your reality, and your brain and body produced some

productive feelings. Have you ever gotten high on alcohol or other drugs to alter your

reality? Have you ever taken a vacation from your work­a­day world to accomplish the

same thing? Do you do meditation or progressive relaxation?

In these situations your reality was altered for a time, then you came to your senses again,

sometimes refreshed with a new perspective, and sometimes with an awful hangover.

Some of the methods people use for altering reality are physically debilitating, and some

of the ones that aren't, are time consuming or not appropriate to do when you're in the

middle of performing your job in civilized society. Can you imagine giving a presentation

to a group, and some scary feelings start to come up, and you say to the group, “Can you

wait 15 minutes, I need to do some progressive relaxation to go on with this meeting?”

Anchors Aweigh

Enter a neurological trick called “Anchoring.” Anchoring is a process we can use to

interrupt a pattern our brain is running which we are uncomfortable with and wish to

outgrow. This anchoring process not only interrupts the undesired pattern, it causes our

brain to run a new pattern with the desired feelings attached.

Before detailing some productive uses for anchoring, let's take a look at how anchors are

alive and well in our everyday lives and how they affect us. I mentioned a song on the

radio as being an anchor. Have you ever had welling up of pride when your country's flag

parades by during the opening of the Olympics? How is it that a piece of cloth can trigger

these feelings? People will argue about desecration of this cloth, whether it's made of

plastic or paper. Fights break out when someone burns one of these flags; except when

it's torn, then it's O.K. to burn it. The flag is a visual anchor for many people. These

people have experiences with this symbol (flag) and have feelings associated with the

experiences. The flag is a triggering device for the stored experiences and feelings we

have filed in our brain.

We are, metaphorically, anchored to the stored feelings, just like a ship is anchored in a

specific harbor. While anchored, the ship's captain can only “Perceive” his current

surroundings ­ the water, the horizon, the shoreline, tides, and weather patterns. There are

countless other spots in the world this ship could drop anchor, some of them even more

delightful, but this is where it is now, being held in place by an anchor. There are other

frames of mind that would be more productive for us to be in, in certain situations, but we

happen to be anchored in a different harbor.

Come To Your Senses

Anchors come to us through the senses. Any one of these five senses can process a

triggering event and anchor you to an experience and feeling. You know about songs on

the radio and flags parading by. Have you ever had someone physically touch you in a

certain way that brought to mind a previous experience or certain feelings? The touch

was also an anchor. Have you ever had a smell mentally take you back in time where you

encountered that smell before? The odor or aroma is an anchor. How about a taste? Does

the taste of birthday cake make you aware of certain feelings, sights, or sounds from the

past? These are all examples of anchors you may be aware of. There are many other

anchors that we respond to that we are not aware of.

Did you ever dislike someone just by looking at him or her? They did not say or do

anything that would cause you to dislike them. Yet the reality was, you did not like them

and you could not consciously “figure it out.” Maybe the Other Than Conscious part of

your brain had noticed a unique eyebrow arch they had. Possibly someone you

encountered beforehand, who gave you reason to dislike them, had the same arch. Part of

your brain, out of consciousness, computed the arch (anchor) and gave you a feeling you

could not consciously explain.

Reminds me of one of Dr. Dave Dobson's stories. . . Dave describes a dream he had about

a three—year—old boy walking along a stone covered path, pouting and kicking stones.

A few days after having the dream, Dave came home on leave from the military and

travels by car with his mother and father to visit his aunt and uncle at their house by the

lake. As they pull down the stone covered path, Dave starts to tell his mother about the

dream he had a few nights before. His mother begins to cry. His father is wondering what

Dave said to upset his mother. She said it was nothing and composed herself. Later that

day, Dave's mother pulled him aside and told him a story. When he was three years old

his mother and father split up for a time and little Dave was shipped out to the aunt and

uncle until his parents worked things out. He was a confused and unhappy three­year­old.

What conscious memories do you have of being three? If you're like most people­none!

Dave was consciously unaware this episode had ever happened, but part of him knew.

Knowing he was going to visit his aunt and uncle on leave quite possibly triggered the

dream of the three­year­old pouting boy. Dave could not fathom how the dream applied

to him, but he did have strong feelings about it. Dave's guess is the stone pathway under

the car's wheels triggered the memory of the dream. Dave would have probably never

consciously known about his parent's difficulties unless his mother told him. The

important thing is, there were anchors (visions of visiting his aunt and uncle, and the

sound of the stone pathway) that triggered experiences and feelings Dave could not

consciously explain. Learned associations called anchors are plentiful, and to make the

effort to figure them all out would take too many lifetimes. In order to change your

response to them, it's enough to know they exist.

Hump Buster

One way to accomplish changing your response to an anchor is to fire off another anchor

that triggers more delightful sensations, sounds or sights. You already do this. You just

call it something different. Have you ever put on music to chase the “Blues” away? Have

you ever gone to a movie to change your state of mind? Have you ever taken a warm bath

to alter your mood? These are short­term solutions. I liken it to the John Lennon song

“Whatever Gets You Through the Night.” This type of anchor may be enough to get you

over the hump for the moment. In many cases, that's all we need ­ a break in the action to

get us back on track. It's similar to a baseball player stepping outside the batter's box for a

moment to mentally regroup.

But how do we create life­long productive anchors that help our talent shine more

quickly? Daydream! It sounds absurd and it works! Here's one way:

Think about a time in your life when you had the type

of feelings that you desire to feel now. When you get

back to that time in your mind and you can feel those

sensations in your body, associate something with them,

like a squeeze of your fist, a rubbing together of your

thumb and first finger, see a vivid color, or say a

memorable word to yourself. The squeezed fist

or other associations act as anchors.

When you squeeze your fist again, you'll be able to

produce the feelings you associated with the initial squeeze.

Practice this daydreaming and associating process over and

over and you'll have a bona fide anchor on your hands when

you need it. You daydream everyday anyway; so daydream

on purpose several times a day and make it work for you.

You can daydream and associate in 30 seconds or less.

Pucker Up

You may not have a time in your live to mentally go back to that has the feelings you

desire now. What can you do? Make it up! That’s right, make it up! The human nervous

system cannot tell the difference between a real or imagined experience. The nervous

system just feels; it doesn't rationalize. If you would like to validate this for yourself, do

this experiment.

Imagine you are taking a fresh lemon out of your refrigerator. See it, in your mind, on a

cutting board. Find a sharp knife and feel the blade slicing through the lemon. Smell the

aroma of the fresh juice that is dripping off the knife and running on to the board.

Imagine picking up half the lemon and squeezing the juice right into your mouth. Taste it

on your tongue, swirl it around and swallow it. Now chew the pulp out of that lemon half.

When you've completed that, do the same thing with the other half. Question: Did you

have saliva build up in your mouth, or did your face grimace while doing this

experiment? If so, here's Question Two: Was it a real lemon?

Your nervous system doesn't really care. It produces the response it would have to a

lemon whether the lemon was real or not. It's the same when we dream. Were we really

being chased by a dog when we awakened breathless? Any feeling you need can be

retrieved and anchored. The more senses you involve in your daydream, the more “real”

the experience becomes to your nervous system. The key is to associate something with

this conjured­up feeling. This deliberate association is the triggering mechanism that will

fire off these desired sensations that assist your talent to shine.

Animal Planet

Like I mentioned before, we have been anchored to things that we are not consciously

aware of. Reminds me of a story . . . A four­year­old girl was playing in a sandbox with a

five­year­old boy. They each decided to build their own sand castle. Sitting back­to­back,

they got going on their projects. While the boy was building, out of the corner of his eye

he spotted a garter snake. He had experience with these snakes before. His father showed

him how to hold them, and the boy knew they were completely harmless. Well, boys will

be boys. He picked up the snake and walked up behind the little girl. He tapped her on the

shoulder, and when she turned around he made a loud sound and stuck the snake right

into her face. She screamed, and he laughed. That was the end of it. Or was it?

As the years passed this little girl knew she didn't like snakes. She figured it was because

girls just don't like those kinds of things. Eventually she grew up and consciously forgot

about the sandbox incident. One night after work, she put on her pajamas and slippers

and sat back for an evening of watching TV. The first show was “Wild Kingdom.” The

announcer came on and said, “Tonight's adventure is all about snakes.” When one

crawled across the screen, so did this woman's skin. Her heart began to beat faster and

she started to perspire. She began to tell herself, “It's only TV,” but these scary feelings

would not go away. She got up and switched to “Family Feud,” and the scary feelings

subsided.

What happened here? This woman had an anchor ­ outside her conscious awareness ­ fire

off some rotten feelings. She did not know “why” she was getting these feelings, yet she

was having them. She got up and changed the channel and got some different feelings.

Conscious, deliberate anchoring is similar to changing the channel.

Suppose it's necessary for this woman to watch “Wild Kingdom” for an upcoming test for

her night school class? What then? The test material won't be covering what's on “Family

Feud.” One answer might be to choose a different response to snakes. How?

Reversal of Misfortune

The neuro­linguistic programming (NLP) people would call it a “Swish Pattern,” and Dr.

Dave Dobson refers to it as “Subjective Reversal.” The name is unimportant. The

outcome is what's valuable. Here's my interpretation of the process that has worked for

me and for thousands of clients I have helped over the years. Let's pretend you have less

than desirable feelings going on, and you don't know “Why.” Your objective is to have to

a more desirable feeling. You can use the specific anchoring process outlined above, or

you can do this. Have the unknown stimulus trigger the desired response. How?

First, rehearse producing some calm, collected feelings. In other words, think about a

time you were calm and collected. Feel what it felt like then. Do this a few times until

you're satisfied you know what calm and collected feels like for you. Now imagine

yourself in a situation where some scary feelings come up. As you begin to notice that

scary sensation, immediately ask your mind to produce those calm and collected feelings.

Rehearse a number of situations where these scary feelings inappropriately come up and

immediately see, hear, and feel yourself responding in the manner you desire.

After some rehearsal with this technique, the old stimulus (even though you may not

know its origin) begins triggering the new response. The unknown stimulus now becomes

a trigger for your brain to produce the desired feelings. You've taken the subject

(stimulus) and reversed your response. Stage fright can stand in the way of your ability to

shine, so get curious how these techniques can help you calm yourself or display the

ability you need to display.

What’s in a Name?

An additional anchoring technique is called USING YOUR NAME FOR A CHANGE.

Here's how you can use this:

When you get some scary feelings that are

not desirable or appropriate, repeat your first

name to yourself over and over again. Your

name is one of the first auditory anchors you

learned. It is how people referred to this bundle

of joy known as you. Remember the tone

of voice in which you speak to an infant. Use

that tone when you're saying your name to

yourself, and notice the calming influence

you have on your own nervous system. It

seems silly and it works!

Anchoring Others

You can use anchoring with other people as well. People are more easily anchored when

they are in a trance state. Trance states happen to us everyday. Daydreaming, driving the

car, talking to ourselves, making sense out of what someone is saying are examples of

trance states we go in and out of. When you invite someone to think about, talk about,

picture, or experience something, they immediately go into the frame of mind I'm

referring to as a trance in order to access what you've requested. Suppose it's something

delightful you've asked him or her to think about. When you notice them bringing that

delightful time to mind (the look on the face, breathing pattern shift, skin color changes,

etc.), you might adopt a softer tone of voice and say, “That's nice.” “That's nice” is an

auditory anchor for that entire experience they were just imagining. After a few

applications of “That's nice” in that tone, you may notice later on when you say the

phrase in that same tone of voice, they begin to produce evidence of some delightful

feelings.

You could accomplish the same thing by touching a specific spot or by raising an

eyebrow when they are accessing the feelings you've suggested. The touch would be a

kinesthetic anchor, and the eyebrow raise would be a visual anchor. There are taste and

smell anchors as well.

You may want people to access other than pleasant memories to anchor. Let's say you're

a district attorney who's addressing a jury. You can begin to tell a “horrible” story about

the accused, and when you notice the jury responding by accessing their own criteria for

“horrible” feelings, you can point to the accused and in a different tone of voice say “That

man.” After peppering your story with a few more pointing gestures coupled with a vocal

tone shift and the phrase “that man,” your final words to the jury, while pointing at the

defendant, might be, "Your choice is clear, convict ‘that man.”’

When you're telling a story, people listening will reference their own feelings about the

words you're using. You can utilize these trance states to “anchor in” the type of feelings

you want them to have like during a job interview. Movie producers do it all the time.

When they come to a suspenseful part, they play a certain kind of music. When you hear

that music later in the film, you begin to access the type of feelings you had earlier. They

do it with lighting, focusing and camera angles as well. Do you think it's an accident that

the smell of popcorn is in the air as you walk into a movie theatre?

NOTE: I don't believe anyone has the power to anchor anyone else. It is my experience

we all have the ability to create an environment where our anchor is more easily received.

Reminds me of a story . . .

Hooray for Hollywood

This man comes come after a challenging day at work. His wife notices him walking up

the path and can almost see the steam coming out of his ears. She wants to go see a new

movie with him tonight. What are her chances of getting a “Yes” while he's in this state?

Slim and none come to mind. But this is a very resourceful woman. She immediately

tunes the radio to the classical music channel, dims the lights, retrieves his favorite

beverage, heads him to his favorite chair, and provides a neck massage. 15 minutes go by

and she asks if he'd like to go to the movies. He, with no noticeable signs of steam, says

“Yes.”

What happened here? Did she change him? Many folks would say she did, and that

would be inaccurate. What she did do was provide a new environment to which he could

respond. Coming up the path, he was responding to the environment inside his head ­

rehashing the day’s trials, and beating himself up. He encountered a whole new, carefully

orchestrated surrounding and began to respond differently. This is when her suggestion

was given and taken. This is the essence of the phenomenon of hypnosis. He was

hypnotizing himself to stay upset by “Talking to himself.” The woman provided a

scenario where her suggestion had more of a chance. The “subject” is always the

hypnotist. The suggesting party is always an environment provider, although their

credentials may be that of a hypnotist.

Noah Webster

Words are important. Words are anchors for one's experience, and, when processed, these

words will access the sensations that go along with that experience. It is worthwhile to

update your language with words that do not carry emotional baggage. That way you

will not prejudice someone or yourself against you when you need to display your talent.

What I'm about to outline for you may sound inane on the surface, and if you follow

along and experiment with this “new” language, you will no longer be held in place by

words.

Dr. Dave Dobson, to whom I have referred many times, has a prescription for

“Outgrowing” patterned reactions. He recommends taking some specific everyday words

that we learn early in life and replacing them permanently with ones we learned at the

high school level. Two of these words are “Good” and “Bad.”

Toilet Training

Think about the environment in which most of us learned these words. Way back when,

if you wet your pants, you may have been referred to as a “Bad” girl. If you made it to the

toilet, you were a “Good” boy. These are words of judgement which have those

experiences and feelings still attached. These are parental approval or disapproval words

that still have emotional value attached to them whether we're conscious of it or not.

Children are most impressionable and the tone of voice with which a word is delivered

has an almost indelible impact when reinforced in an emotional situation. Toilet training,

as many parents will attest, most often has been an emotionally charged experience.

Higher Education

Two similar words learned at the high school level are: “Beneficial” and “Counter­

productive.” The emotional baggage that goes along with these type words is not as

heavy as “Good” and “Bad.” The notion is every time you use the words “Good” and

“Bad,” you are accessing, at the subconscious level, feelings that went along with these

words. You can bypass these feelings when you use updated references.

You may buy into this concept for the word “Bad” but certainly not for “Good.” I invite

you to recall for a moment, the tone that was used with a child when saying “Good.” If

you used that tone with an adult, they may accuse you of being condescending. Even

though you are not using that tone with an adult, it is, at an “other­than­conscious” level,

married to that word. It’s due to the bombardment they received when younger and most

impressionable. I had a hard time buying into this idea until I heard the next story.

Dave Dobson was invited to speak before a group of women. While he was discussing

this concept with one of the sponsors of the talk, she thought the idea was preposterous.

To illustrate the point, Dave asked to be introduced as an environmental expert who

would give a ten­minute talk on saving the environment. He told the sponsor that three

times during the speech he would use the phrase “rape the environment.” He also told this

person he could privately identify for her, after the talk, some women in the group that

had some experience with “rape.” She declined. She immediately got the gift of

awareness that some words are power packed even when used in an entirely unrelated

context. This validated for her and for me how emotional some words can be.

Let’s Give it a Go

“Try” is another word that is productive to update. “Try” does not exist in nature, it is a

totally "left­brained" label that does not match up with action. Deer don't try to stand up.

A young feeble deer making some sort of an effort to get to its feet is not trying. The

fawn either gets up or it does not. A more accurate statement on its effort is that it is half

standing up. The key is the effort expended.

“Try” is an excuse word because we've been conditioned to it that way. Let's refer back

the toilet training period as an example. If you wet your pants and your parent was

admonishing you for doing so, you may have uttered, “I tried to make it to the bathroom,

mommy.” You didn't make any effort whatsoever, but you learned the word “Try” would

absolve you from any responsibility.

Put it on an adult level. You run into an old acquaintance. You chat for a while and one

of you says, “Let's try and get together.” Then you go your separate ways. What does that

mean? Does it mean that each of you will check your appointment schedules and come

up with a common date? Does it mean you will call the other person at noon tomorrow to

let them know the time and place? Or does it mean you don't want to get together at all

and are using “Try” as the escape word?

The biggest difficulty with using “Try” is that no effort is actually made. The underlying

idea is that if you come up with an acceptable enough reason, it will explain your

behavior. Armed with that knowledge, we spend most of our life looking for reasons to

defend our behavior rather than change it. “Try” is a time­tested defense, and it keeps us

in place. “Make an effort” is a phrase that suggests to your mind that you will do

something. The word “Try” anchors you, through other­than­conscious references, to

excuses and inactivity. The British have an action phrase that is a prescription for

outgrowing “Try.” They say, "Let's give it a go."

“In the Past”

Some other words needlessly hold your talent at bay. Suppose you say you are “Shy,”

“Not artistic,” “Clumsy,” or “Not very smart.” These are expressions that hold you in

place. I am not suggesting that you say an affirmation like "I am artistic." I believe part of

your mind knows that is not accurate. If you believe you are not artistic and want to

change your belief, a place to start is “In the past.”

“In the past” is a phrase that works its own magic when continuously applied. If it is your

habit to say, “I'm not very artistic,” say something like this instead. “In the past, I haven't

been very artistic.” The consistent referencing of the observation as “In the past,” is a

pattern interrupt. The pattern interrupt, “In the past,” sets the stage for your mind to come

up with additional options that will move you forward and have your talent gush out.

Many people hold their state of health in place with words. The most destructive label is

the word “My.” “My arthritis” won't allow me to play tennis anymore. “My diabetes”

leaves me with little energy. Two things that will give you more power immediately are:

1. Drop the word “My” from any disease process.

2. Apply “In the past” to any limitation you ascribe to the disease.

For example: “In the past, arthritis has kept me from playing tennis.” “In the past,

diabetes has caused me to feel less energetic.”

“My” is a word, to which we've been conditioned, that means ownership. Who wants to

own arthritis? I'm not suggesting this shift in language will make arthritis or diabetes

disappear. What I'm suggesting is, if you refer to it “In the past" and remove the

ownership, you may find your situation more palatable. Better yet, if there is a way your

mind can help you ease or put this disease behind you, this new language will facilitate

the process.

How does “In the past” apply to talent. “In the past shyness has prevented me from

showing my stuff.” In the past, the fear of speaking in front of people has kept me and my

ability from their view.”

Two More Words

“Right” and “Wrong” as a way of thinking causes many unnecessary problems that can

be avoided if we opt for the word “Preference” instead. Right and wrong are cultivated by

culture and even within that culture there are disagreements about what is right and what

is wrong. The world of right and wrong is a sticky wicket because there are so many

versions of right and wrong.

The word preference personalizes something and helps you take ownership of your

position on something instead of hiding behind the apron of mother culture. If you tell

someone they are wrong about something, there is an immediate wall built between you

and them. No one likes being wrong. When you say, “I’m right,” the immediate

implication is the other person is wrong. Notice what happens if you say to someone, “I

believe that information is inaccurate” vs. telling him or her they are wrong. You’ve done

two things by saying that.

1.You have put the onus on the information, not them.

2.You have used a high school word vs. a parental judgment word that has

been carrying negative baggage for you since before you were five.

That’s a nifty way around right and wrong and here’s another option. Get into the habit of

saying you have a preference for something instead of taking a cultural position of right

or wrong. It immediately tells people, you are not arguing the merits of right and wrong

and it also demonstrates ownership of the preference.

You may have a specific way of doing things that other people do much differently. Let’s

pretend you have a specific idea about how to raise children. You instinctively know

other people have other ideas. If you declare you have the right way or the best way to

bring up children, you are going to set up a polarity response with many people. Notice

what happens if you say you have a preference of bringing up your children the way you

do. This gives credence to other ways of doing things without you having to defend being

right. Having a preference will give you more flexibility without having to abandon or

defend your way of doing things. Being more flexible is a catalyst to getting your talent

recognized.

This is some useful information to get you curious about how anchoring is working in

your life everyday and how to use it with others or yourself to get out of your own way.

The way you choose to use it is up to you. You can continue to react in the same way to

the unproductive anchors you have acquired, or you can choose a new response and

watch your talent get noticed.

Communication

Communication with yourself first and others second is the best use of this evolutionary

gift called consciousness that breeds Talent or Ability. Many years ago I wrote an article

called; Do New Sneakers Make You Run Faster? – I talked extensively about this

communication process and called this ability, “Power.”

What is Power?

Power is congruence! What is congruence? Some refer to it as charisma, being in tune,

centered, present and a host of other labels. My best guess is that congruence is know­

how. The dictionary provides a valuable “nuts and bolts” definition. “Congruence” a

math term—the coinciding exactly of two items when they are superimposed, as in

congruent triangles. The Latin derivation is “congruere,” to agree. Take a look at this

example.

When one triangle is on top of another triangle and all their angles line up (agree), they

are called “congruent triangles.”

Here's a counter example.

When the angles don't line up, they are “incongruent triangles.”

How does this apply to humans? Like a triangle, we have three angles. We are powerful

communicators when these angles line up and agree. We are congruent! When they don't,

we aren't!

The three angles are.

1. The NEUROLOGICAL angle.

2. The PHYSIOLOGICAL angle.

3. The LOGICAL angle.

When these three angles agree, as in an equilateral triangle, we send powerful messages

to all parts of the brain of those with whom we are communicating and to ourselves.

Alternately, we send “Mixed messages” and have the tendency to confuse those on the

receiving end and ourselves when these three angles don't line up.

Definition of the Angles

The NEUROLOGICAL angle is the location where the eyes go for information.

When discussing enthusiasm, we covered how we use our body and gestures to

communicate. This is the PHYSIOLOGICAL angle.

The words we use to communicate add to this power. This is the LOGICAL angle.

The eye positions, the body gestures, and the words (including their tone), when they

agree, enable us to produce congruent messages that get through.

Here's a textbook example. (And remember, we don't live our life by a textbook).

Reminds me of a story . . . about the medical school student who lived his life

exclusively by his textbooks. The poor chap died from a misprint! It’s also like the

famous photographer, Ansel Adams said – “The photographic negative is the musical

score; the print the performance.”

Let's pretend you are giving a presentation to a group at work. Here are the words you are

saying:

“Please take a look at this chart. As you can clearly see, the position of our company is

declining compared to our competitors. I asked you here today to talk over and answer

the question—How can we get a hold of, and hang on to new and previous customers”?

How do we deliver this message with ability/congruence/power? Let's do it sentence by

sentence.

WHAT YOU SAY—“Please take a look at this chart.”

WHAT YOU DO—When you are saying “Look,” take your eyes up into pictures

or defocus them straight ahead. Either point with your finger, or have your palms facing

downward. A visual tone of voice will generally have a higher pitch.

WHAT YOU SAY—“As you can clearly see, the position of our company is

declining compared to our competitors.”

WHAT YOU DO—Again, “Clearly see,” “Position,” and “Declining compared

to” are visual words in this context. Visual eye accessing and visual gestures would be

adding to the congruency of the message, as would a visual tone.

WHAT YOU SAY—“I asked you here today to talk over and answer the

question . . . “

WHAT YOU DO—“Asked,” “Talk over,” “Answer,” and “Question” are

auditory words. When using these words, take your eyes down and left, or back and forth

across the midline. Physiologically, you can tilt your head to one side, touch your hand to

your chin, fold your arms across your chest, or clasp your hands together. The auditory

tone is in the midrange and has a tendency to be monotone.

At this point you are probably saying to yourself, “This is ridiculous and impossible to

carry out.” I agree. Reminds me of a story . . . I took piano lessons as an adult. My

teacher showed me all the individual notes and I got to play them and hear what they

sounded like. Eventually, I progressed to playing three notes simultaneously—a chord. I

found out the melody of a song is usually played one note at a time. Also, I became aware

that each note of a melody has several chords that sound harmonious when played with

that note. So, I got the bright idea to write a song and change chords on every note of the

melody. In theory, it can be done. In practice, it sounds disjointed, especially if done to

excess.

No one is completely congruent. Congruency is a lifelong discovery, not a destination.

By making yourself aware of how you communicate, you increase your congruency. This

increases your communication skills with yourself as well as others and helps your talent

shine.

It isn't necessary to change eye positions on every predicate or predicate phrase and

adjust your gestures and voice tone to match. It's enough to become aware of our

incongruities. This awareness creates the environment for our brain to be able to outgrow

these incongruities. Let's go back to the piano for a moment. In the flow of melody,

proper placement of a chord enhances the sound. A part of us knows when proper

placement has been accomplished and stores that information to use as a future

barometer. In the flow of communication, periodic placement of these eye movements,

gestures and tones will enhance the spoken words and give them their power. A part of us

knows when a powerful communication has taken place. That same part knows when we

haven't been that effective. The awareness of being less than effective (incongruent) will

get our brain curious as to how to make the necessary adjustments to outgrow the old way

and grow into the new way.

Let's finish the last sentence of our presentation.

WHAT YOU SAY—“How can we get a hold of, and hang on to new and

previous customers?”

WHAT YOU DO—“Get a hold of” and “Hang on to” are kinesthetic phrases. Eye

movements down and right, and any palms up or touching one's self along the midline

(throat, chest, stomach, abdomen) gesture will compliment the words and make the

message more recognizable by the receiving brain. The kinesthetic tone has a tendency to

be in the lower register.

Awareness is the key to becoming more congruent. Once we become more aware of the

way we communicate, it becomes easier for our brain to make the adjustments towards

congruity. When we are continually aware, our brain pays attention and makes these

adjustments a natural part of us ­ second nature ­ just like any other thing we do well.

Stool Sample

Congruence is not only for communicating effectively with others. It's equally important

when communicating with yourself. The way we process our environment has a direct

effect on the way we respond to life. Of the three major systems, visual, auditory, and

kinesthetic, we seem to prefer one with which to process information, that is, to think. By

becoming more congruent, we can process information in all three systems giving us

better balance and more power.

Think of the three major systems that people process information in as a three­legged

stool. Each leg represents one of our systems (visual, auditory, kinesthetic). The seat

represents you. Which leg is the longest? Which system do you prefer to use most of the

time? You make that the longest leg of your stool and label which system it represents.

Then you guess your next most preferred system, draw a leg length and label it. Finally,

you represent your least used system by drawing a shorter leg and labeling it. You may

wind up with something like this:

This will not be a comfortable stool to be seated on for your entire life. The delightful

news is that there is a way you can stretch out the legs until you even them out, assuring

you a more comfortable seat. All it takes is practice at being congruent. Those, whose

stool legs are extremely uneven, are many times deemed “Mentally unbalanced.” Maybe

now you will have a finer appreciation of what that condition is all about.

Have you ever overreacted to a situation? Have you ever given an inappropriate response

to a certain set of circumstances, such as yelling at the kids just for being kids, when you

come home from a less than glorious day at work? What happened? Possibly on your ride

home you processed whatever went on at work in your preferred system. Being too much

for that system to handle, the information flowed into the next preferred system. Then

finally, it flowed into your least preferred system to think in.

Let's pretend your least preferred system is kinesthesia. You are not used to that much

sensation in the feeling leg of your stool, and you overreact to the sensations that, most

probably, are outside of your conscious awareness. The same thing happens when

someone's short leg is the visual system. If they get too much stimulation in the visual

leg, he may start making pictures of things that have nothing to do with reality, such as

picturing his spouse having an affair. A short auditory leg may have a person hear

unaccustomed voices in his head due to over stimulation.

When we even out our stool legs (become more congruent), thinking is processed more

evenly. Our systems then have the capacity for more aware storage, resulting in more

balance. If an upset comes along and we're used to “Seeing our way through” things, and

we are not used to “Talking or feeling our way through,” we may be in for an overload in

one or more of our shorter legs. Did you ever respond in a way you couldn't rationally

explain? Overload! You taxed a system that was not stretched out and probably not

within your conscious awareness.

Outside of Conscious Awareness

Most folks have one or more of their systems out of conscious awareness. Have you ever

said, “I see what you mean” and not actually have seen any pictures? The picture was

there, you just were not aware of it. Our mind makes pictures all the time and we even

talk about these pictures. Here's an example: Potential homebuyer to contractor, “I can

see how a house like that would look on my empty lot.” While the customer is saying that

sentence, if they're not seeing the mental picture of the house on the lot, that picture is out

of awareness. When we say something like, “It looks a little fuzzy to me,” we are not

getting a clear mental picture. In this case the pictures are partially out of awareness. The

goal of congruency is to get all systems into awareness.

An auditory system out of awareness might be an old tape of Mom or Dad telling you

something from a long time ago. Have you ever had the occasion to sit down and relax

only to have the thought pop up, “I should be cleaning the garage or folding the

laundry?” I wonder if that's you doing the prompting or an old tape playing out of

awareness. A question you might ask yourself at that point is, “I wonder, is that me

talking or someone else?” Just wait for an answer to your question. You may discover

something out of your awareness was controlling you and interfering with a relaxing

moment.

Have you ever watched yourself on videotape? Did you ever notice the gestures you use?

A lot of movement is outside conscious awareness. My friend, Paul Perry and I were

conducting a communications workshop. He was asking the people if they ever saw

speakers who rock back and forth on their heels and shift their weight from side to side.

He explained the body naturally wanted to move, but the speaker just stayed in place,

rocking and swaying, unaware of this nudge to move. That's an example of having the

kinesthetic leg out of awareness.

Again, awareness is the key to congruency. Once you become aware of all your systems,

and practice being congruent in all of them, the more powerfully you'll communicate

with yourself and others. With practice, you will deal with life's upsets on a more even

keel, and seemingly, the winds of “Reality” won't blow as hard in your direction.

Crystal Clear

A congruent message has the least chance for misinterpretation. Have you ever been

totally convinced your message was clear, and the person on the receiving end didn't

comprehend? How about your messages to yourself? “It's their fault” or “I must be

dense.” That's what most of us say to ourselves and that's not accurate. Many factors

could have led to these communications falling apart. You can lay odds one of the major

factors was incongruity. Incongruity is at the base of most “mixed messages.” Reminds

me of a story . . .

When I conduct smoking cessation seminars, I ask people a number of questions that

require a “Yes” or “No” answer. I pay attention to how they say, “Yes” and “No”—

neurologically, physiologically, and logically. Most people nod when they say, “Yes” and

shake their head from side to side when they say, “No.” I then ask if they're ready to stop

smoking. Most times they nod and say, “Yes.” At every seminar, I observe a few people

shaking their head from side to side while saying, “Yes.” That's a mixed message. That's

incongruence!

The logical half of the brain that interprets gives me the verbal, rational answer. Many

times the spoken answer is edited before it's delivered. The purposeful half of the brain

gives me the nonverbal answer to my question. When the verbal and nonverbal responses

don't match (agree), the communicator is sending an incongruent message of which he is

usually unaware.

Pants on Fire

Were you able to successfully lie to your mother? Not me! My mother knew when I

wasn't telling the truth. How did she know? If you asked her, her response may have been

something like: “I could just tell” or “I could see right through him” or “It just didn't sit

right with me.” How did she know? Consciously, she didn't know how she knew how.

The other­than­conscious part of her brain was also paying attention over the years. It

paid attention to tones of voice, eye positions, body postures, gestures and sensations felt

in the body. Doing split second computations and comparisons with things it had

referenced and catalogued in the past, the OTC part of her brain sent a signal to her

nervous system that her conscious brain portion interpreted into words. In this case the

word was "Lie."

Perry Morgan

A number of years ago, I was conducting a training session for the Rhode Island Trial

Lawyers Association when I demonstrated this phenomenon to one of the attorneys. Her

task was to tell an ordinary story about something that went on in her life recently. She

could tell me the truth or make it up. Her choice. I watched her eyes as she mentally

decided on the story she was about to tell. Just as she was ready to begin, I told her

everything she was about to relate to me was going to be a lie. I was accurate. She was

astonished.

How did I know? Luck? Did I genetically receive this ability from my mother? Neither! I

just paid attention to how this lady processed (thought about) the information she was

about to present. Earlier, I illustrated where peoples' eyes go for information. For most

people your eyes go left if they are remembering, and right if they are constructing. This

attorney's eyes went almost exclusively right. She was doing a lot of constructing, which

in this context meant she was lying. Had I observed her eyes going left and remembering,

I would have guessed her story was true because it's hard to remember that which didn't

happen. So now I know how my mother knew how without knowing how she knew how.

Human Lie Detector

Steve Rhoads was the Police Chief of East Hazel Crest, Illinois, a suburb of Chicago.

Steve knows when people are lying, and he's put it to the test with college students and

convicted criminals. Chief Rhoads, using NLP eye accessing codes and techniques he's

developed on his own, out pointed the polygraph operators by as much as 31 percent in

controlled experiments. Tuesday, January 20th, 1987, columnist Jim Spencer in the

Chicago Tribune reported on Rhoads' experiments.

“In 1980, he gathered a group of 400 college students and randomly selected some of

them to go into a room and do a single activity constantly for 3 minutes. The rest were

given a picture of the same room and told to figure out what they would've done if they

had gone in.

‘I had to determine who went in and who didn't,’ Rhoads

says. To further measure the efficacy of his method,

all of the students also were given lie detector tests.

‘What we came up with was that I was correct 96 percent

of the time and the polygraph operators were correct

72 percent of the time,’ Rhoads says.

The scholarly journals to which Rhoads submitted his findings remained unconvinced.

They rejected the study, claiming that it might work with college students but not with

criminals. So in 1982, Rhoads repeated his experiment using volunteers from a Colorado

state prison. This time he picked the liars in 94 percent of the cases, while the polygraph

operators were successful only 61 percent of the time.”

When I interviewed Chief Rhoads, he told me of one of his own discoveries. He claims

when a person is lying, the pupils of their eyes narrow and become smaller. Conversely,

when they are telling the truth, the pupils dilate to a degree. The major difference

between Steve Rhoads and my mom is that the chief knows how he knows how.

Your Own BS Detector

Ever have something look terrific and sound great but you had an uneasy feeling about it?

Based on your "gut reaction," you passed on the opportunity. Later, you found out you

made a wise choice when that opportunity went belly up. Consider yourself lucky. Many

people never pay attention to signals their brain sends their body because they are

unaware of the signal. Here's something you might get curious about. When making an

important decision, check things with yourself congruently. Use all systems before

deciding whether something is O.K. or not O.K. How does it look? How does it sound?

How does it feel? Pay attention to what you get back from your own body. When you

begin to trust the other­than­conscious component of your mind, you will send and

receive more congruent messages and choose your response accordingly.

NOTE: Congruency is Not Enthusiasm!

As powerful as enthusiasm is, you can be enthusiastic and be incongruent. Have you ever

been caught up in someone's enthusiasm and a day or so later you lost the fire? Most

seminars and workshops are like that. Workshop presenters, although enthusiastic, are

most often incongruent. Their message was only powerful enough to reach us logically

and not presented congruently enough to reach us deeply. That's the difference between

congruity and incongruity. Congruent messages reach all parts of the mind.

Here are a couple of ways you can practice being congruent:

1. Describe a commonplace (ordinary) experience to a

friend or into a video tape recorder. Use see, hear

and feel predicates and phrases, and use the eye

patterns, gestures, and tones that correspond to the

words. You might describe what you did Saturday

night or what you had for lunch yesterday. Be as

congruent in all systems as you can consciously be.

Play back the tape or ask your partner for

feedback. Check also with yourself as to what you

did elegantly and what you may have missed.

There's no such thing as piano playing. I tried it

a couple of times and it just doesn't work. How

do you get to Carnegie Hall?

2. Sing a song congruently! Pick a song you know the

words to and practice making the smooth transitions

from system to system coordinating eye movements,

gestures, and tone variations. It's fun to do. Aside

from giving you practice being congruent, it will

be beneficial in a couple of other ways. Generally,

you'll be able to tell the preferred system of the

songwriter and how they have a repeating pattern of

moving among systems. Also, if you make a mental

picture of the performer whose song you are

singing, you'll begin to notice the congruities or

incongruities of the performance. Chances are, if

your favorite singer is considered to be

outstanding in live performances, they are probably

more congruent than not while performing.

Here are a few lyrics to “(Sittin' On) The Dock of the Bay” by Otis Redding. See if you

can guess the preferred system and repetitive pattern.

“Sittin' in the mornin' sun

I'll be sittin' when the evenin' comes

watching the ships roll in

and I'll watch em' roll away again

Yea, I'm just sittin' on the dock of the bay

watchin' the tide roll away

Ooh, just sittin' on the dock of the bay wastin' time.”

My guess is we have a feel­see repetitive pattern going on. Compare songs written by the

same person and see if there are similar preferences and patterns. Most of all, when doing

this exercise, practice singing congruently and process your surprise slowly as you begin

to notice congruent communications becoming part of you. You might find it beneficial

to take a break, breathe some fresh air, and go stretch out your legs now!

The Importance of Congruency

So why take all this time to talk about congruency in a chapter about talent or ability?

Simply this, others will recognize the talent you develop with Desire and Discipline much

more rapidly when you are a congruent communicator.

Who’s In the Picture?

Here’s one final exercise to tease out talent. Remember earlier I wrote that application of

desire and discipline is necessary to have talent show up. Here’s something to discipline

yourself to do that will have amazing results unearthing your natural abilities. It’s a self­

image exercise. Start seeing yourself as you actually are. Make mental pictures of exactly

how you look – warts and all. Make these pictures close up, in color, bright, with as much

detail as you can see. Make them as clear as you can. Now, put yourself in every mental

picture you make. If you’re thinking about the ocean, put yourself in the picture. If you’re

seeing your kitchen, put yourself in the picture. If you’re seeing a new golf club, clothing

item, or piece of furniture, put yourself in the picture. Making quality pictures of just how

you are in as many situations as you can imagine will have confidence show up in more

abundance. When you are confident, your talent comes out effortlessly. It seems too

simplistic to be useful and it works. Start out with pictures of exactly how you look and

be willing to see yourself just the way you are. This willingness, along with making the

pictures close, bright, colorful, etc., will draw out confidence and quiet the internal

conversation that’s telling you you’re not enough. Talent comes out more easily when a

person feels confident.

Updating Your Self Image

After you become adept at the previous exercise, then you can start building your new

self­image. Here’s how:

Close your eyes and walk yourself back through time. See yourself as you looked when

you were 5 years old. See it in as much detail as possible. It may be that you remember a

picture of yourself at that age or maybe you just have a sense of what you looked like

when you were 5. Then get an image of yourself in the 6 th grade as colorful, close up,

clear and bright as you can make it. Then do the same thing for when you were 17, then

28. Finally come up to the age you are today and see yourself as you are.

Then, mentally set that picture of whom you have evolved to aside. Next, picture yourself

at the most peaceful place on earth that you’ve ever been. See yourself in the picture.

Notice the peaceful look on your face. Now, keeping that look on your face, begin

crafting the ideal image of yourself that you want others to see – the ideal image you

want to see. Remember, it’s your imagination so you can get as wild as you want in there.

Hone your image to the precise way you want to look with as much visual detail as you

can muster. When you’ve got it right where you want it, mentally bring back the picture

you have evolved to today.

Now, introduce these pictures to each other so they can meet for the first time. Let them

mix together just like two liquids in a blender. The result will be a brand new self­image

with all the resourcefulness that you’ve garnered since you’ve been a child. This image

will now start to project on others no matter what you look like and it will start to project

on you as well – getting you closer to the ideal than you could have ever done

consciously with a whole bunch of useless self­talk.

Words are the Caboose on the Choo­Choo of Life

Talking to yourself won’t get you there, pep talks won’t get you there; affirmations won’t

do it either. Creating a new self­image will, because the self­image is a picture that shows

up much quicker than self­talk. Pictures come at the speed of light – 186,000 miles per

second. Self­talk is sound which travels about 1200 feet per second. The picture, which

has more influence on you, will have come and gone by the time you come up with the

words. So make sure you update your pictures for a better self­image with more

confidence naturally leading to more talent.

If you would like assistance in improving your self­image, purchase a copy of my CD

“Self­Image – a picture is worth a thousand pep talks 2 ”

at http://johnmorganseminars.com

Chapter 6

“If we don’t change direction soon, we’ll end up where we’re going.”

Comedian, Professor Irwin Corey

Cycles, Stages, Passages

Many of us have our desires change over time. What was desirable then is not desirable

now. Take me as an example. I had a very rewarding career in broadcasting. I was as

passionate and disciplined as one could be. Others recognized the abilities I had

developed and I was rewarded in the form of awards, ratings, and financial remuneration.

I was successful. Then something changed.

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I lost my passion for being a day­to­day broadcaster. I don’t know how it happened but it

did. I’m glad I had the good fortune to interview Rabbi Kushner and understand that I

wasn’t burned out. It was just that the work I was doing had lost its meaning for me.

I wish I could tell you that once I had this recognition that a clear picture of what I should

do next came into focus. It didn’t. I didn’t know what to do. I actually remained in

broadcasting in some capacity for another 20 years. I had a family to raise and provide

for. I had all the responsibilities any family man or woman can relate to. I was not in a

position to just pick up sticks and “Find myself,” nor did I know how.

I continued to be successful as a radio & TV on­air performer and program director but it

was much more difficult. This is hard for some people to envision but when the passion

leaves, you need to double up on one of the other two building blocks of success if you

want to keep pace and continue to reap the fruits of your labor.

I had most of the broadcasting talent I was ever going to develop, so that left me with one

option – to double up on my discipline. That’s exactly what I did. Yes, it paid the bills,

and put my sons through college but it took its toll on me. I didn’t know it then but I had

soured on life because I was working too hard at something I had little passion for. I’m

sure you can relate.

My Year of Reckoning

It all came crashing down for me. In the course of one year, my wife of 28 years divorced

me, my parents both died and I was fired from a lucrative job in broadcasting. This is not

a “poor me” story. There are plenty of people with far worse tales to tell. This is just a

way of showing you how the inspiration for The Success Triangle came out of my

personal pain. Had I had this blueprint back then, I would have been able to recognize

and remedy my situation much sooner than I did. You can avoid many pitfalls and move

towards your desires immediately because you now possess a handbook for being

successful in your job, in your life and in your relationships. It starts now!

The Work­Arounds Don’t Work

Yes, it’s true, you can double up your discipline for a while to get you over the hump, but

it’s always a short­term solution. Eventually, you will wear down and become hard to

live with, boring to yourself, then to others.

You may be able to think of a professional athlete whose ability waned. They may get by

on past achievements in the false hope that their ability will return to its peak level. It’s a

very rare case indeed. They may still have the desire to compete and they may increase

their exercise regiment to squeeze one more season in, but that’s it. They need to find

something new to which they can apply The Success Triangle.

If you lose your discipline, you may be able to get by on your passion and talent for a

while, but I can assure you, you’ll be on your way out even if you don’t recognize that

you’re greasing your own skids. Once you start missing details, they pile up and then

collapse upon you.

Half Way is No Way To Live

There are stages in life where change must take place for you to remain whole. When you

come upon these situations, you will now recognize what’s needed and you will have

your “Way book,” The Success Triangle, to help you make the successful transition.

This book is a valuable tool for young folks starting out and for those at a crossroads no

matter what your age. The Success Triangle will get you to get curious about what’s

next when you are building a successful endeavor or when you are facing a necessary

change. The application of the principles and exercises contained within this book will

guide you. Read the book over again and again and pay careful attention to the stories.

They are there for a reason. Also, Remember this: Life works better when making

memories and successes, not reliving them.

Final Thought

I will leave you with this thought paraphrased from a saying from the 12 th Century

Persian Poet, Hafiz:

To be successful, be a flute hole that the universe plays its music through.

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