Want to change your life forever? Remember these words –free advice someone told me – they said,
"The chains of habit are too weak to be felt until they're too strong to be broken."
If you want to live the new you, remember those words. Scientists have confirmed it; it's neuroplasticity, and it reminds me of one other quote. When you put these two quotes together...it's transformative. It said,
“All the heavens and all the hells are inside of you.”
Now, I don't know if there's heaven when we die or hell; I'll leave that to the spiritual experts.
I'm not one of them, but I will tell you and I'm sure you can agree, there's heaven and hell on earth. I've experienced it and I bet you have too.
Heaven...What is it?.... It's when the chains of habit reinforce what we really want to do, what our true destiny is.
Hell is when our habits oppose what we know we should be doing. This is hell on earth: To live at half capacity, what else could be hell? Injury? You can recover from an injury. Loss of money? Bankruptcy? That might hit you. The average millionaire has been bankrupt twice, but you know what, they recover...
But hell on earth is the time that you've lost because all the money in the world and all the wishing in the world will never get you back that time.
Remember....All the heavens and all the hells are INSIDE of you…
And they're there because when we grew up, society imposed its will on us. They call that social controls. Maybe your parents didn't do the job they could have done because they didn't know any better–the traumas of life.
Sigmund Freud, the great founder of modern psychology (one of them actually), says,
"There's three things that cause us pain in life…,”
This is hell on earth. He says,
1) It's the death and dissolution of our body, time and aging, and missing out. This is hell.
2) The pain of outside forces, things outside of our control.
3) It's other people and, by that, he basically meant screwing us over.
All the heavens and all the hells are inside of us and they're dictated by the habits of the mind.
If I lost everything I had, maybe I will. You make money, you lose money. I'm an entrepreneur. That's part of the game. Maybe I'll be back sleeping in my childhood room at my mum's house like I was, not too long ago.
For you, you make the choice. You can live in heaven; You can live in hell. I'll tell you this, there's not a person in the world that could control that as well as you can because nobody cares about you like you.
I was thinking today: I wanted a challenge for myself; I wanted a miracle at one point; I wanted magic.
I thought that would be amazing. The new you, what is the new you?
The new you strangely is probably the old you: Before society dropped bombs on your brain;
Before the education system imposed its will and kicked all the curiosity out of you that you had when you were three and four and when you asked a lot of questions and then society started telling you to shut up;
Before life kicked in and mother nature imposed fear because when you're young you're fearless, but then all of a sudden mother nature hit you in the head.
Gravity kicks in – you fall and you realise, "Wait a second. This is a big bad world."
Habits of the mind begin to form...
And these habits, like I said, the chains of habit are too weak to be felt until they're too strong to be broken. The next thing you know fear becomes the dominant force in your life.
I'll tell you this, once that thing takes hold, it's like a snake; boa constrictor; it wraps around your brain.
The next thing you know you procrastinate?, not because you know you don't want to do it, but because you want to do it but maybe the habit of the brain says,
"What if it don't work out??"
Fear...
Maybe it says,
"What if people laugh at you??" – Social controls...
Or it says, "Maybe what happens if you go broke?" – Economic pressure.
Maybe it is over-analyzing so you become paralyzed because you've got this option, this option, that option – paradox choice.
You're beginning to create hell on earth; all of a sudden, like I said, I've seen this: doubts, fears, procrastination, pain. It swells up inside of us.
All the heavens and all the hells are inside you?.
How do you find heaven?
Easy... Find the new you.
But It's not the new you. I just like to call it the new you because it feels new – It's probably the old you.
Think about it…
When I was a little kid I remember drawing out how things were going to go down: “and I was going to fall in love and I was going to have a business, I'm going to have kids and blah blah blah”.
I was always kind of an entrepreneur so I was going to do my harebrained ideas...
And then… life hit...
And most of it, like Freud said, is the pain of other people letting you down. You start going,
"If I can't trust that person, I can't trust anybody." Hell on earth is beginning to be created.
That chain, that habit of the mind becomes so strong.
By the time you realized it; by the time you realized you're a fear-based person; by the time you realized you procrastinate a lot, you can't fix it… but you can... that is if you understand the transformational power of the mind.
Scientist called this neuroplasticity. Biologist now called this epigenetics. You can change your destiny instantly. All change happens instantly even though it takes a while to show up. If you're broke, I'm going to tell you this, if one day you become wealthy; If you're broke, there will be a day and you eventually let's say become a millionaire or whatever. There will be a day when you realize that was the day you went from financial hell on earth to financial heaven on earth – even though the bank account the next day won't kick in. That's the good news.
If you can master the habits of the mind, then the chains will fall off. And once the chains fall off, suddenly, the things that you've been dreaming of, you begin to do.
I'll tell you that's heaven on earth, man.
I've met people like that.
When I met my mentor Muwulu Edward (civil engineer and serial entrepreneur), he was unlike anybody I'd ever met before growing up because I saw it in his eyes. I still see it in his eyes. Well he is older now. He is 30 years ahead of me. The other day while I was at his house. He said,
"You see this spring in the step?. You see the eyes?. They're alive, man, unlike anything you see in the status quo society that we live in." All of a sudden, he said to me he said, "I don't even know how people sleep with all the opportunities."
Hell on earth is exactly what it sounds like.
Hell is when fear, the pain, the loss of freedom and opportunity hit you so hard that all you can do is sit there and go, "What the hell did I do wrong?"
Like I said, I've seen it. It can be an instant change. For you, it's going to be different than it was for me, but it will always be the same place.
All the heavens and all the hells are inside of you and then, the habits of the mind.
Great movie I saw, you might have seen it, won Academy award. It's called Life Is Beautiful and in the story, if you haven't seen it, you must see it. It will change your life if you let it.
I remember it was one of the first times that I began to understand the habits of mind when I saw this movie.
A man and his son are caught by the Nazis and they go to concentration camp and the man wants to protect his son from hell on earth: concentration camp where people are being killed every day.
He tells his son, "It's a big game that we're playing and every morning we march and we don't need as much food because we're going to see who can win the game."
His son, Heaven on earth. His son thought it was great. Man, this guy takes the Father of the Year Award.
Imagine if somebody had trained my mind and said, "Hey, anything you’re dropped into, even concentration camp, heaven on earth can be created."
The late Nelson Mandela was imprisoned for 27 years unjustly. Most people will go nuts, crazy, kill themselves, be angry at the world. He came out and won a Nobel Prize and ended the apartheid in South Africa. He understood that the chains of habit were too weak to be felt until they were too strong to be broken.
My advice to myself and maybe it will help you is __guard your mind__...jealously. When you feel the negativity creep in, when you surround yourself with the wrong people who begin to manipulate your mind. When society, the status quo begins to infiltrate financially, health-wise, happiness, socially, then you cut it out like it's cancer before it becomes too strong and you'll never beat it. It will be too strong to be felt.
Some of you reading this are 12, you're the lucky ones. No one ever told me this. Some of you are 60, 40, 30, my mum used to tell me, "Better late than never." It can be a little harder if you're older, but you better kick it in gear.
Exercise the mind. Push the mind. You know I say READ! It doesn't even matter sometimes what you're reading.
You're forcing your mind to be in your control, not in the control of the world out there.
Everybody you meet has their own agenda, most often unless they're close friends and true friends. They got their agenda and they're happy to manipulate you to get what they want. That becomes hell on earth. Hell on earth, all the heavens and all the hells are inside of you. Say that to yourself a few times when stress comes.
Hey, this father turned concentration camp into heaven on earth for his son. I bet you it ain't concentration camp. If he can do it, you can do it?.
Life will get tough. Charlie Munger, one of my favorite people on planet earth; one of the wisest people, the billionaire, he says, "Life will throw tremendous blows at you." Don't get it twisted. I don't care how you visualize. You will suffer the death of a loved one. You will suffer the betrayal of somebody that you thought you could count on with your life.
They'll let you down. You will probably be screwed over by a business partner. You will get used to it. Now, you can minimize it, but through it all the great ones? and you must become a great one.
They're cool under pressure – that's heaven on earth.
When the tornado and the hurricanes of life are hitting you in between the eyes and you stay cool under pressure because you say, "I'm not going to let my mind be manipulated by my environment. I will be cool under pressure because only the cool under pressure experienced heaven on earth."
Hell on earth is an uncontrolled mind that's running your life.
I call it being the bitch of your own brain. Never be the bitch of your own brain, control your mind. One of my favorite poems by Chief Tecumseh says,
"Love your life. Perfect your life. Beautify all things in your life." He ends by saying, "When it comes your time to cross over the great divide, don't be like other people who cry and ask for more time to live their life over again. Go like a hero going home. Sing your death song. What does he mean? Even in the midst of death, he said, "You can find heaven on earth."
Heaven on earth is knowing you didn't waste your time; You weren't overcome by fear; You conquered it like Alexander the Great says throughout history, "There's been two types of people, cowards and conquerors.?" That's my shortened version of his long quote. You've overcome fear. You still are aware of danger and stir away from it, but you're not dominated by fear. You know when to analyze and you know when to act so you don't become paralyzed by too many options. There's a time like Muwulu Edward, my mentor, told me. "There's a time to stop and smell the roses and a time to go do stuff." You know when it's time to quit procrastinating. Pull your big boy pants up. Don't let the chains of procrastination become too strong so that you can never overcome them. Knock it out.
Whatever you should be doing when you read this post, I want you to start today.
This is heaven on earth. To go to bed and say, "I knocked it out at the pitch today. I'm going to do it again tomorrow." Sometimes you slip and fall.
It's not hell on earth to make a mistake for one day, but I'll tell you this: You miss it two days; you miss going to the gym two days; you miss making money and however you're doing it. You miss that two days, now it becomes a habit of mind. You're going to be a little poorer and a little poorer and a little poorer, and so on.
Be careful. Once you're in hell, it's hell to get out of hell. No pun intended. I'll tell you the one tough thing about life: it’s easy to fall out of heaven on earth.
Our brain has a negativity bias, so don't fall out of heaven into hell. Hell is easy to slip into as Thoreau said, "The massive men lead lives of quiet desperation. What is called resignation is actually confirmed desperation.”
Talk to people. Be like, "Hey, man, I'm going to change the world."
People may be like, "People already tried that. You aren't going to do it." That's their confirmed desperation. They're resigned, "Nah, nah." You say, "Damn. People making money. This is the age of the entrepreneur. Women are making money. Minorities are making money. Kids are making money. I'm going to go make some of that myself. I'm not going to live status quo financially." People will tell you, "I resigned myself to hell on earth. I'm going to be broke the rest of my life." You be different. Try it. Do an experiment. Next 30 days, maybe you need to come back and read this post a few times.
Sometimes I watch videos to motivate me. I don't motivate myself, but I watch people that are a lot better than me, a lot more motivated than me. Whoever motivates you, kick it in gear.
One thing that technology can do for you that's never been possible in the world is it can connect you into the minds and the heaven on earth that other people are experiencing. You live in their heaven, for a second it gets you used to it. It re-calibrates your brain and resets the barometer of what normal is because what's normal to society as Thoreau said centuries ago is a life of quiet desperation of resignation to a life half-lived. That's hell on earth. I hope you'll find heaven on earth. If you are, leave me a comment. I would love to hear what your heaven on earth is.
For me, heaven on earth is built around understanding my four motivators and operating within them. Each of us have different personality types. I'm motivated by action. Not everybody needs to take as much action as I've taken. You find yours.
I don't want to keep this too long.
Change your life. Change your mind, change your life. Change your mind, change your life.
Remeber...
~The chains of habit are too weak to be felt until they're too strong to be broken.
~All the heavens and all the hells are inside of you.
Little bonus thought:
One quick way and practical tip to live heaven on earth – not so much hell – have a shorter memory.
You want to have heaven on earth? Mark my words, shorten that damn memory of yours?.
All the memories of betrayals; all the memories of traumas, do your best. Now, some people say you can't do it. Well, then you will live on hell, in hell right here.
The memories of some other things that we remember, that's hell. That's a little quick practical tip. Resign yourself to forget one thing. Maybe leave a comment. What's something you can't forget? A bad relationship, a business you start, someone who ripped you off. Come on, your choice, heaven or hell.
All right, talk to you soon.
