All day every day you are talking. Sometimes your
mouth is moving when you are speaking, but most of the
time it is not.
Huh??? No, it is not because you are a ventriloquist.
All day (and even all night) you are constantly talking to
yourself. This self-talk is mostly subconscious
background noise that you normally pay no conscious
attention to, but that does not diminish its importance in
determining your reality.
This self-talk is a constant stream of affirmations about
how you perceive the world, what you believe to be true
about your world and your place in it, about what is
possible for you to be, to do and to have in life.
(You may have discovered by now that there is some repetition
in this book. That is intentional. I am helping you to adopt a
new prosperity paradigm and your method of self-talk by
affirming and re-affirming the essential understandings you
must adopt and apply in order to become a consciously creative
self-actualized human being.)
When you pay attention to your self-talk and understand
that this subconscious programming is determining how
you behave and thus what results show up in your life,
you will come to see that when you listen to this
subconscious self-talk, you are listening to your future
unfold.
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So, in order to change the future that is unfolding for you
right now, right here in this present moment, you need to
take conscious control of this subconscious self-talk.
Of the approximately 60,000 thoughts that pass through
your mind each day, a large percentage is useless trivia
like old ad jingles, snippets of old songs and other
nonsensical tidbits of information you have been
repetitively exposed to in your past. These can be
ignored.
What is critical to pay attention to is the recurring self-
talk that is about the image you hold of yourself, how
you believe that the world works and how you see your
place in the world. This is where you must exert your
control.
The best method that I know that enables you to
effectively do this is a five step process:
a. Get still for at least twenty minutes.
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b. Pay attention to the stream of thoughts
that are passing through your mind.
Identify the major repetitive patterns.
c. Ask yourself the following questions…
“Why am I thinking that thought? Where
did it come from? Does it serve me in any
way to think that way? Can I think
differently about that?”
d. Begin the process of thinking more
empowering thoughts by creating specific
affirmations about the person you wish to
be, the things you aspire to do and the
success you envision having.
e. Have the discipline to repeat these
affirmations to yourself throughout the
day.
For example, while other people are complaining about
standing in line at the bank, I am affirming my ideals
repetitively. You’ll know when this has begun to work
when you find yourself thinking these affirmations
without consciously choosing to do so.
The things you habitually talk about to other people are
also important. What you talk about defines what you
believe in, what you care about, what you are in the
process of creating for yourself and how much value you
place on your life. Yes, what you talk about demonstrates
how much value you place on your life.
If you talk about nothing but inanities, then it is obvious
that you place no value on your own time since you are
willing to waste it talking about nonsense, and that you
place no value on the other person’s life since you are
willing to waste the precious moments of their life
talking about useless stuff and that you place no value on
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your ability to contribute to the person you are speaking
to since all you are willing to talk about are non-
contributory things. You have devalued yourself and the
other person.
If you listen carefully to what other people speak about,
you will soon come to see the truth of that old saying,
“Below average people talk about other people; average
people talk about things and events; and above average
people talk about ideas.”
Super successful people spend a lot of time speaking
about ideals. What ideals? The ones they create in their
own imagination.
To expand upon that simplistic adage so that you can see
that how you speak and what you say demonstrate what
your thought processes are mostly about and how you
are constantly defining your potential and constructing
your reality, think about the following ideas.
You can tell a lot about people by what they read. What
people read is one of the ways they talk to themselves
and reinforce (affirm) how their reality picture is
constructed. One of the first things I do, and have done
for years, when invited to someone’s home or office is to
look at their bookshelves (if they have any) and at any
magazines they have lying around.
What I have learned from this observation is that
interesting people have interests that empower them and
uninteresting people have interests that disempower
them.
If a person’s reading material consists of National
Inquirer, People Magazine or any of their equivalents,
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you know that they have low self-esteem and any
conversation you will have with them will be more
gossip than anything else and they will be
disempowering to themselves and you.
If a person’s reading material consists mainly of daily
newspapers and magazines like Time, Newsweek, The
Economist, et cetera, you know that any conversation
with them will consist of world events and prevailing
conditions in the world because they believe that they are
creatures of event and circumstance and they will be
disempowering to themselves and you.
If a person’s reading material consists of magazines like
The Atlantic and New Scientist, or websites like
closertotruth.com or TED.com, you know that any conversation with them will be interesting and intelligent
and they will be empowering to themselves and you.
If a person’s bookshelf has books like this one or books
by Wayne Dyer, Deepak Chopra, Amit Goswami, et cetera, you know that they are interested in personal
growth and empowerment and, as a consequence, will
have something valuable to say and they will be
empowering to themselves and you.
A person who does not read good books is no better off
than a person who cannot read. A person who is not
continually learning is no better off than the child in
some impoverished country who has no access to
education.
A person who fills their mind with trash cannot
realistically expect to have a happy, successful and
fulfilling life. Yet, many people are constantly filling their
minds with trash. How? By having conversations with
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themselves that reinforce a worldview that does not
empower, by having conversations with others about
banalities, trivialities and inanities, by reading trash or by
not reading at all and by watching junk on television.
I do not even own a television. It is not just because there
is nothing worth watching most of the time; but the fact
that the majority of the stuff that is broadcast is actually
designed to disempower the audience. It makes you
stupid.
If you think you are immune, you are deluding yourself.
Television is a combination of narcotic and mind viruses.
It puts you into an alpha brainwave state and then
dumps garbage into your subconscious mind. It is not
entertainment; it is entrainment.
Turn off your television and turn on your inner vision
and you will become empowered to take control of
your own life, your own success and your own
freedom.
Start having conversations with people that are
empowering. Instead of asking them about who won the
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ball game, ask them how they plan on winning the game
of life. Instead of telling them the latest gossip, tell them
what you are creating.
Don’t spend too much time talking about what is already
manifest, what already exists. That just makes you
average. Allow other people to live their lives. Don’t
waste your time talking about them unless you want to
be below average.
Talk about your truth, your ideals, what you desire to see
manifest. Talk about these things to yourself and to
others. When you speak about your ideals (your truth)
with passion to other people, they will get enthused
about helping you achieve your ideal. You will also
inspire them to live larger lives.
You only have two really valuable assets: the time you
were given (& use wisely); the ideals you create (& strive
to enact). All else is of lesser import. So why spend your
mental energy, your time and your attention on things
that are not relevant to the person you desire to become,
the ideals you desire to enact and the success you desire
to attain.
Learn to replace that constant mental chatter, those
endless tape loops of old ad jingles, self-defeating self-
talk and subconscious non-productive mental patterns
with new, bold, empowering affirmations about who you
are becoming, what you are in the process of creating and
the gratitude you have for having these ideals be a part of
your reality.
Speak always, first and foremost, your own truth.
Otherwise, you’ll end up living somebody else’s.
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Quick Review:
You can take conscious control of the subconscious
thought patterns that control how you behave and what
you expect life to be like.
Everything you talk about, to yourself and others, is an
affirmation of the person you are in the process of
becoming.
Direct Action Steps:
Turn off your television.
Start paying attention to your thought processes.
Make a list of specific affirmations that support the new
you and your ideals. Great resource
Train yourself to think intentionally and creatively.
Learn something new every day.
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“A little knowledge that acts is worth infinitely more
than much knowledge that is idle.”
~ Kahlil Gibran
“I have always thought the actions of men the best
interpreters of their thoughts.”
~ John Locke
“Good thoughts are no better than good dreams,
unless they be executed!”
~ Ralph Waldo Emerson
“In any moment of decision the best thing you can do
is the right thing,
the next best thing is the wrong thing,
and the worst thing you can do is nothing.”
~ Teddy Roosevelt
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