Why do spiritual capacities turn off when they turn off? Do you have the correct answer?

old-lady-driving

Needing it

I have a student whose company moves earth. That is their business. Parking lots, roads, leveling the ground.

Unless you have a clear picture, a clear and accurate mental representation of what a job entails, you can’t bid successfully on it: you may lose your shirt if your mental representation was off. ((The doctor’s mental representation of the state of my injured ear was neither clear nor accurate, and therefore his suggestions to me were way off the mark. This was the topic of my article yesterday…))

Why you should not trust your doctor, your nutritionist, your muscle testing…

mental representation of a glass half fullMental Representation… an incredibly useful distinction and an incredibly rare capacity

I loved the book ‘Peak, the new science of expertise’, until almost the very end. Then I got angry.

Somewhere around 90% of the book I noticed that he uses an expression, a phrase, that means something to him, the author, but meant nothing to me.

Now I know how you feel when you read my articles…

The expression he used was “Mental Representation“.

One of the most useful things I have ever done for myself

One of the most useful things I have ever done is this:

I would find a mentor. I offered my services to do whatever needed done. More often than not I learned useful skills through the doing. Skills that I needed for myself. And while I was around the mentor, I could learn from him.

Life needs a lot of skills to do life successfully. The opportunities to learn those skills is sparse… Because skills are not knowledge, even if they are mental, intellectual skills: they are the ability to do, to perform a skill… not to understand it.

skillsTo learn skills on your own stuff is very difficult. Why? Because you are too invested, you

What if you have something blocking you from growing? The Seven Boulders principle

BoulderSome ten years ago I learned a valuable way of looking at making life meaningful, or living a meaningful life. The teacher suggested that we pick a horizon, a direction, and then look what’s blocking the way of getting there.

Since then I saw that even seeing the horizon is blocked… Blocked by seven boulders, lined up one behind the other, blocking your view, blocking your movement.

So, in my coaching practice, when I ask people to set a direction, and they can’t see any, I am inclined to suggest that they choose the direction: living a meaningful live, or a fulfilled life… without specifying what it is.

Knowledge, Strategy, Execution, is that enough for success?

michael-jordan-mental-representationI lead a workshop on Sunday. I had knowledge, I had strategy. I executed it. It was sloppy. What was missing?

I didn’t know. But “god” works in mysterious ways, the book I am reading has an answer that shows me what has been missing for me on Sunday and all my life.

The book, Peak, the new science of expertise, calls it Mental Representation.

Mental Representation is being able to see the finished product in your mind’s eye, and also see the process getting there, so you can anticipate missteps, and can correct, given that you

The capacity of seeing patterns…the threshold capacity

alberteinstein118979I am reading a book, Peak: Secrets from the New Science of Expertise. I am reading it because I want to be able to teach my students better, so they can leave behind the level of ordinary school learning, the pedestrian learning that always produces pedestrian result.

Amateurish performance, amateurish life. ((Your level of fulfillment is exponentially correlated to the amount of effort you invested. Easy: no fulfillment. Hard, lots of effort, hardship: lots of fulfillment.))

Healing… is that a negative word? Is that a sign of negativity?

negative-positiveDid you know that if you say: I need healing, what you are saying is that you are sick?

This includes inner healing, faith healing, etc…

And when you start from something wrong… like “I am sick”, you are on your way to create a context that is misery every step of the way.

If I needed to define what negativity is, it’s that “what is is wrong, and it needs to be fixed.”

Yesterday I was leading my Theta State training webinar, and I felt horrible. Partially, because I wasn’t feeling well myself. Partially because my students didn’t feel well. And yet partially because one of my students wrote to me, and I nee

Making choices: are you a rank amateur?

Risk-Management-2This may be the most important article you read this year, this decade… because this article may inspire you to become a professional at living, instead of remaining a rank amateur… aka bumbling idiot.

Risk Management

You have two options. You need to choose. You need to choose the option that has the lower cost to your reproductive success if it turns out to be wrong.

Now, I suspect, that almost none of us think about cost in terms of reproductive success, but according to evolutionary psychology, you are a mere vehicle to your genes, your genes are only inte

Why is awareness the predictor of future success, why not skills or knowledge?

shearling-coat-2The first few steps in the 67 steps are long, rich, convoluted audios. Why? Because no matter how long the audio, you’ll only get one little thing, if that, because the cone of vision of your awareness is as wide as a pencil.

Did I notice, did I take in all he spoke about my first time around doing the 67 steps? No. I didn’t.

It is like traveling in a car. If you look out the window, you miss the conversation in the car. If you take part in the conversation in the car, you miss the whole trip. If you read, if you are hungry…

The goal is to expand the cone of awareness s

The feeling that you are insufficient for the task that is in front of you

3052758966_aff579c03d_zThis feeling can be colored by fear, dread, can feel like anxiety, but at the root of most fear is a sense that you are insufficient for the task that is in front of you.

Not big enough, not smart enough, not fast enough… Not enough = insufficient.

Now, for most people, feeling this is all they need to run for the hills.

For some people, they can hang in there, waiting for the feeling to subside.

For some people, unless they feel up to the task, they won’t even start.

For me: I know that unless I feel that and go beyond it, doing what I don’t feel I can, several times a