In the famous marshmallow experiment by Walter Mischel. He said that the 30% of the kids that didn’t eat the marshmallow, didn’t even look at the marshmallow. They kept doing other things, keeping their eyes off the marshmallow. Consciously, intentionally, purposefully.

I have read a lot about that experiment, I have even written about it, but I didn’t know that the “winners” avoided looking at the marshmallow. that piece was missing for me, until now. ((One of the challenges I face with my students and clients is their high desire number, and the Desire Trap… this discovery I stumbled on, by accident, is the missing piece in helping my students with that challenge.))

Watching that TED talk ((

)) yesterday opened up something inside, that is still full of swirling fog, ethereal figures, and yet, I know that something from the invisible has been released.

I was getting busy going down the rabbit hole about the marshmallow test which is as much of a principle as any principle, although its portability is hard to see…

All principles are portable, just like fractals. That is the nature of reality: as above so is below, or was that the other way around?

If it is true, a real principle, not just a made up rule, it is true everywhere, but to recognize it you need to be able to connect the dots.

Connecting the dots requires you to have a wide cone of vision, so you can compare the two phenomenon in the same glance, or alternatively, have enough long term memory stored image that you can compare with.

Most people never committed anything to long term memory, and even the capacity for storing something for long term has atrophied.

The size of your long term memory, interestingly, will decide what size box you live in.

It take me just one short interaction to know that… what you talk about indicates the size of your box.

What’s wrong with a small box, you ask? Nothing WRONG, but it is limiting. You cannot dance, you cannot have adventure, you are locked in with the few people who are probably wretched and no fun.

Your love of animals, interestingly, shows that you are not fulfilled in your small box… But it only indicates, it doesn’t remedy… the size of the box you live in will not grow without serious effort.

Pain.

While I was an architect, my box got smaller… uncomfortable. While I was in Landmark Education, my box got smaller… very limiting.

Breaking out of those small boxes was painful, scary, and unreasonable.

I was obeying an inner demand that made no sense to follow.

I left the cushy comfortable paycheck, the fame and fortune, the popularity, the certainty for the bigger, uncertain future.

I burned bridges, or ships if you want to use historical analogy. There was only one way… onward.

I didn’t know I was doing that.

Many things one does that one is not aware of… that isn’t distinguished… that you cannot see for what it is, until later, when someone points it out.

I never had a pipe dream. I never had a vision of what I want to accomplish on the long term. I have always been lousy at goal setting.

According to that TED talk, this is the strategy of the endurance athletes, the runner, the mountain climber… to worry about your 3-feet, your next step, and be present. Present to the step.

New Age teaches you to create visions of a future you want… and rob you of your ability to focus on the step you are taking.

New Age loves to trap you in the Desire Trap… someone caught in the desire trap will buy anything, whether they can use it or not, whether they understand what it does or not.

I have a bunch of desire trap buyers, a whole 30% of my buyers is focused on the imagined end result, and unable to refocus on the step that is needed to get there.

In fact, 40% of the people who buy the Water Energizer, are trapped in the vision of the end result. 50% of the people who buy the Health Consultation where I give you a perfect match diet to get you on the right path to health…

When you are trapped in the Desire Trap you cannot even look and diagnose if you are doing the right thing in the present.

Mind boggling… At least it boggles MY mind. They? they probably think that there is something wrong with the product… never with them.

If a caterpillar had the long term vision like they teach you, they would, no doubt on my mind, start to build the cocoon prematurely, and they would never become a butterfly.

What steps would they be missing? Eating as much as they can of the right stuff… for example. Instead they would be looking for “super foods” like you, healing herbs, like you, alkaline water… like you, instead of eating only what is a perfect match to life… and none of what isn’t… like most of what you eat.

Many of my clients try to climb the Kilimanjaro, without any gear, without any practice, without any backup, without getting well first.

When your vibration drops dramatically, often what happened is you got caught eating the wrong things, drinking the wrong things… and not so much what I have been suspecting, you adjusting your own vibration to the people’s in your life.

I have a secret for you. If you experience moments or dumbness, depression, listlessness, or hurry/pressure/stress: don’t worry about the cause of it. Just raise your health and hydration number in a hurry.

If you have had your health session with me: it should be obvious and easy. Eliminate the stuff that is not on your list first… It’s mostly carbs your body doesn’t deal well with… that people not in my programs eat and stay low vibration and moronic with. Your mother and your mother in law… lol. Not kidding, by the way.

And make sure you are playing the right audio for the right duration to your water… I can restore myself, my health, my cell hydration in a few hours… Your body is more willing than you are. 🙁

And if you are scared that if you can then you must… forget about the end result and just do the next tiny step, the step you enjoy taking, and the fear will disappear.

Fear comes from the long term view. On the short term there is always something you can do.

How does the saying go? You cannot do everything at once but you can do something at once. Sit down and play the guitar. Sit down and read for a few minutes. Sit down and memorize a poem. Sit down and write a few lines in your thesis. Sit down and call someone who you can talk to… not chat, mind you. That is not “doing”… that is sideways… avoidance.

I have stumbled on everything by chance. Goals are discovered, not made. I like my wording “stumbled upon”

I like the expression “bumbling idiot”. When you are willing to be a bumbling idiot, but present, not in shame or worry about it, you can stumble on amazing things… and that is my modus operandi… I have no shame, I have no “precious I” to protect, I am like a bumblebee… seemingly defying the laws of physics, buzzing around in blissful ignorance… laughing a lot.

I go to my webinars, my course sessions with a notepad with one or two words on it… and allow the course, the participants, the what’s missing to guide me to where to take it.

Bumblebee perfection.

Compare that with your rule based, precious “I” protecting, precious “I” promoting actions all leading to misery…

The Playground program’s full name is: Playground: it is never too late to have a happy childhood… ((“It is very obvious that we are not influenced by “facts” but by our interpretation of the facts.” ~ Alfred Adler))

Which, to me, means that whatever you do know, consciously, will cancel out what you did as a child unconsciously.

Unless you remain gripped in the trueness of your early and false assumptions and decisions.

You are not worthless, not “not enough”, not Not-a-superman, not slated to be killed, not a zero.

Compensating for that early self-image is what perpetuates it. ((“We are not determined by our experiences, but are self-determined by the meaning we give to them; and when we take particular experiences as the basis for our future life, we are almost certain to be misguided to some degree. Meanings are not determined by situations. We determine ourselves by the meanings we ascribe to situations.” ~ Alfred Adler))

And you can consciously unlearn it, catch when it wants to assert itself again, and start living a life worth writing about.

But you can also go back and see that probably you were part of the 70%, the marshmallow eaters, and you may still be one.

But given the tidbits in this article, you can become masterful at taking your eyes off the marshmallow, and raise your TLB, your Twitchy Little Bastard score, and become part of the 30%, the winners in life.

Now, in my personal experience, the 30%-70% numbers are a lie, as in fabrication. It is more like 1%-99%.

But knowing what you know now, plus the Playground program, can propel you into the 1%, the happy, the fulfilled, and the high vibration. One step at a time.

You cannot do everything at once, but there is always one thing that you can do at once. ((More quotes for you:

“In fact, Bill Clinton’s an excellent example of what he should be doing when he realizes that he’s not invulnerable. He realized two things: his invulnerability was contextualized in two things: junk food, and he had a problem with certain kinds of women.” ~ Walter Mischel

 

“Melancholy is not one of my emotions. Quite seriously, I don’t do melancholy. It’s a miserable way to be.” ~ Walter Mischel

 

“I have an easy tendency to stumble and fall, which is not a good thing in an 84-year-old guy, so when I brush my teeth, then I do balancing exercises.” ~ Walter Mischel

 

“James Watson summarizes the conclusion: “A predisposition does not a predetermination make.” ~ Walter Mischel

 

“I think the whole point about self-control, the whole point about willpower, is to help people understand that there are endless self-nudge techniques that can be enormously helpful and are very simple.” ~ Walter Mischel

 

“And you can save more money for retirement. It’s not just about marshmallows.” ~ Walter Mischel

 

“If you can deal with hot emotions, then you can study for the S.A.T. instead of watching television, and you can save more money for retirement. It’s not just about marshmallows.” ~ Walter Mischel

 

“If you want to know why some kids can wait and others can’t, then you’ve got to think like they think.” ~ Walter Mischel

 

“Once you realize that will power is just a matter of learning how to control your attention and thoughts, you can really begin to increase it.” ~ Walter Mischel))

Read the original article: If the caterpillar planned to become a butterfly, there would be no more butterflies… but why?