2
My understanding
of how things work
If it is true that we become what we think about most of the time, we must monitor our thoughts. Humans are the only species who can do this. Tielhard DeChardan, in the Phenomenon of Man, referred to this as the ability to reflect. All other animals can think; however, we are the only ones who can think about thinking.
Before we go further, it is important to understand that every thought is really two thoughts. Our first thought is whatever we desire, and our second is, too often, our fear that we will not get it. These two thoughts are balanced on the ends of a teeter-totter. Whichever one has the greater mass determines what we experience in our lives.
After reading Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill, I understood that my thinking could make a difference. Until that time, primarily because of the Law of Grace that my parents instilled within me, I thought I just had to accept what happened and react as best I could.
Around 2005, I heard someone say, “You can be, do, or have anything that you desire.” I sort of glossed that over, thinking, “Yeah. Yeah. I know all that stuff.” Well, that statement turned out to be so true and so powerful that it is hard to believe. And I really did not fully understand it at all, at that time.
So let’s take a minute to examine this.
We have things and possessions that cost money. We also have relationships that do not cost money, yet they are very valuable. And we have family; these are people we don’t own, but they are our family whether we like them or not. Hopefully, you like your relatives; however, if you do not, I will show you later in this book how to change your feelings toward them so that your relationship with your family no longer has a detrimental effect on you.
How do we acquire any of these things and people in our lives? By doing something. Nothing happens until we do something, until we put forth action of some sort: working, talking, selling, driving, studying, reading, listening to speakers, going to college, taking training courses, cooking, cleaning, building, courting, waiting, serving others, writing, loving, and so on.
When we do something, the results are that we have something: possessions, relationships, cars, homes, toys, friends, family, bigger bank accounts, and so forth.
And we define success by our successful actions that result in us having those things we desire.
How do we know what successful action to do in order to acquire the things that we desire? Somehow, we have to learn that.
In Put Your Health in Your Own Hands, I wrote two sections titled, “You are what you eat” and “You eat what you are.” The concept is that we act based on “who we are.” For example, let’s say two people witness someone stumble over a curb and fall on the sidewalk. One of the witnesses is an emergency medical technician (EMT) and the other is an attorney. The EMT knows exactly how to help medically. The lawyer probably does not know what to do medically, yet knows how to help legally. The first and automatic action of each is based on who they are.
Who we are is based on our thinking and the memories of all of our past experiences— good or bad. We are a cumulative composite of everything we have ever experienced. It is important to understand that we can change who we are.
We can eliminate the effects of traumatic events from our past. We can enhance the things that have been good. We can begin to listen to people who are doing the things we desire, and we can model our behaviors after those people who have the things we desire. We can learn from the experiences of those who have been where we are now and have grown beyond that point.
And we can educate ourselves through the help of a mentor or life coach who can teach us to be and do so that we can have the things and types of relationships we desire.
This process of “be, do, have” is very simple and sequential. And it is the reverse of the once-popular paradigm of “have, do, be” that many of us learned. That old, inaccurate belief says, for example, a person must have an education and do a good job in order to be successful. But, as we will see, this thought pattern is backward to the Law of Co-creation.
First, we must become the person we desire to be. The traits of that desired person within us will cause us to do the actions that will attract things into our life that we desire to have.
If we try to force the actions before we become that person, we will fail because our thoughts and actions will be incongruent and will not have any attractive power.
If we possess things without becoming that person or doing correct actions, we will be very unhappy, living outside of our comfort zone, and we will sabotage our actions or the actions of others around us until we lose our possessions or shatter our relationships, thus forcing ourselves to “go back” to who we “know” we are.
This process of “be, do, have” is so vital to creating your amazing life that I recommend you read this section over and over until you grasp how important it is: You must BECOME the person you desire to be, BEFORE you can take the correct actions to gain what you desire.
One of my mentors often said, “This concept takes five minutes to learn and a lifetime to master.”
So, regardless of where you are now in this learning/mastering process, remember that you can be, do, or have anything you desire. It is up to YOU to learn how to create your life.
To do that, we must first understand how the mind works, which is the subject of the next chapter.
Worrying does not take away tomorrow’s troubles, but it does take away today’s peace. — Marcel Proust