The title of this lecture is the same as that of the 1939 motivational and business classic before it was renamed, “Think and Grow Rich” during the production phase. I highly recommend it for reading.
In 1914, steel tycoon, Andrew Carnegie, once the richest man in the world, commissioned Napoleon Hill to interview 500 of the richest and most influential men of the time to glean from them common and practical success principles anyone could adopt and achieve a similar rate of success. These 500 included Thomas Edison, Henry Ford, W.H. Woolworth, J.P. Morgan, J.D. Rockefeller, Richard Sears, William Wrigley, Charles Schwab and presidents Theodore Roosevelt, Herbert Hoover, Woodrow Wilson and Frederick Delano Roosevelt. The project took 25 years to complete, and in that time Napoleon Hill ascended to an adviser to Presidents Herber Hoover, Woodrow Wilson and Franklin D. Roosevelt. His classic is now among the most widely read in the success literature genre and promoted as “required reading” for anyone wishing to attain riches by a number of contemporary millionaires and billionaires, including; Bill Gates, Michael Dell, Oprah Winfrey and Warren Buffett.
Seeking to reach the attention of the common man, “Science” in the title was changed to “Think”. “Success” in the title was changed to “Grow Rich” for it describes success as it really is as a process, and it was specific to the predominant concerns of men surviving The Depression Era. In it, Napoleon Hill had purported to have discovered the “Science” or formula for success in any endeavor. After talking to 500 men over 25 years, I would bet that he had gained a more defined understanding of what it takes than any of the individual 500 samples who were in the 1% and by no accident.
Why was “Science” changed to “Think” if not at its rudimentary definition, Science is nothing but methodical thinking? It begins with questions, then researching current answers to those questions, developing a then educated guess to any remaining questions, and next beginning to test those hypotheses through experimentation and interpreting the results to finally add to those findings in our database of collective knowledge about our world on just about everything therein. This is called the “Scientific Method”. Science arises from its Latin root “scientia” which means “to know” or “knowledge”. As you’ll see, knowledge is indeed power. But to gain knowledge, one must be curious and think. It brings opinions and biases to trial. It is thinking educatedly.
Between starting your business and becoming a success, not everything is going to be figured out for you, even in an established and time-tested industry. Technology is rapidly upending many traditional rules and new ones will have to take their place. Even in an established industry, it will still be incumbent upon you to set your business apart in the marketplace, which will require innovation, creativity and daring as you decide what it is that you will bringing to the market that is different, better, and new if you hope to remain competitive. To figure out these unanswered questions, one must know how to think educatedly or how to practice science, for business is indeed a science as well as it is an art form.
Guessing in ignorance and then making plans upon that can be disastrous, costly and unnecessary. When it comes to selling your business concept to investors, you will be expected to be able to back up your claims with hard facts and evidence as a lawyer would trying to win a case in the courtroom. It is difficult to argue with science except for with science itself.
Therefore, the scientific method you may have learned in high school at the latest applies to business as well. It must become an integral method by which you conduct your business. Not even after researching and constructing your Baldwin Business Institute business plan will you have all the answers. What you will have is a neat and focused framework within which to practice your science. It should have within it more intelligent questions than answers which will be solved in the implementation of each objective as you move on to working your plan after planning your work. Because of this, only after starting your business will you be able to refine your business plan as you go through the process of business. Your business plan, therefore will never be complete and it can only get better with time and experience. The focus in the beginning should then be to only create a solid logistical foundation for your science and then you’re on your way. It will point your intentions in the right direction toward success.
Think of it this way; there are two ways to learn, by instruction and then by experience and both have their place. Learning by instruction gives wisdom to learn more safely by experience. Remember Driver’s Ed, and the classroom time you had before you ever got behind the wheel? While you may have still been nervous, you knew what to look out for and conceptually what to do step-by-step. You knew the difference between the gas and the brake pedal, the gear shift and the emergency brake. This is the intention behind The Baldwin Business Institute. However, instruction does not take the place of learning by real-world experiences. Mark Twain is famous for writing, “Don’t let your boy’s schooling interfere with your education.” When you learn by instruction and study, you are a student. When you learn by experience, practice, trial and error, you are a disciple, from which the word, “discipline” arises. To learn thoroughly, you must be a student and a disciple in order to achieve mastery. In fact, the very definition of a professional is one who studies his/her craft toward mastery. Therefore, you could invest tens of thousands of dollars in debt or out of your own pocket in exchange for generic instruction at the business school at Georgia State. While great information, you would still need to figure out on your own how to apply these lessons to your business concept, and you won’t need everything you’ll be graded on to get that degree. Or you could join the workshop at The Baldwin Business Institute and get only as much instruction as you’ll basically need tailored to your business concept and then allow yourself to go learn by experience, practice, trial and error. So in essence, consider the first 10 years of your business as though you are in school. It takes about as long to earn your doctorate and become a physician or attorney. Though at the end of 10 years, you will have graduated the owner of a successful business, while the student will have graduated with an MBA you can then hire to work for your business. Compare the tuition the student has spent with your startup expenses and you may come out spending less. If the student can find the money to earn a degree, you can certainly find the money to start and own a business.
As a benchmark for graduation at the end of ten years, a basic and achievable goal would be a net worth in excess of $1 million and personal annual income in excess of $100K. A standard map of your goals should look something similar to this:
The Freshman Quarter (Year 1-3) Set up. Get started. Begin making money. (Associates Degree)
The Sophomore Quarter (Year 4-6) Systematize. Go full time. (Bachelors Degree)
The Junior Quarter (Year 7-9) Become an established feature within your market. Excellence. Industry/Market Leadership. (Masters Degree)
The Senior Quarter (Year 10-12) Have accounting in the Black and achieve a net worth in excess of $1 million and personal income in excess of $100K>>>GRADUATION!!! Expand, sell, franchise or go public. (Doctorate Degree)
While making money may not be your primary motivation for being in business, the cause of making money and being profitable should never be left out of view. It is a responsibility of being in business.
To treat your first ten years like school will require you to use the scientific method to learn how to perform your business most effectively through experimentation and examination. When you do this, there is no such thing as failure. When you’re not winning, you’re learning. “I have not failed. I just found 10,000 ways that don’t work.” -Thomas Edison.
So let’s refresh the scientific method:
Step #1- Ask a question. When it comes time to execute any part of your business plan, the most common question is “How?” then “What factors are involved?”
Step #2- Research, Google, visit the library, ask-a-friend (a good source), visit Nielson.com, census.gov, The Bureau of Labor Statistics ( bls.gov ), The Small Business Administration ( SBA.gov ), The Wall Street Journal, and array of business and industry magazines and websites, conduct your own polls, surveys, questionnaires and focus groups to compile as much information as you can that might answer your questions and always scrutinize your sources. Are they any common bits of information being repeated? Does some findings explain other reports in more depth? Write a report summarizing your findings.
Step #3- Hypothesize. From your research, guess an answer to your questions. What parts of your research supports your guess? Even better, debate your guess with a friend who has not done the research who will grill you with logical questions. Have a partner do research independent of you and then come together to see if there are any differing findings or conclusions and then debate them to refine your hypothesis. Once you have a refined hypothesis, how could you test out your guess on your business and how would you be able to verify that it is true or at least valid with supporting evidence? What do you assume will happen? This must all go on a report.
Step #4-Experiment. Develop a method by which to test your hypothesis and ways to gather and measure data, first in a closed, controlled and simulated environment and then in the real world. Are the results duplicable? What’s the formula? (2 slices of white Wonder Bread, a tablespoon of jam and a tablespoon of peanut butter makes the best PB&J by popular opinion.) Consumer studies, taste tests and polls are examples of the closed, controlled and simulated phase called the laboratory phase of experimentation, and sample participants are carefully selected to represent the proportion of diversity within the target market.
If the hypothesis is verified at this stage, proceed to testing it in the real world, called the trial phase while you measure and gather data so that you can interpret the results. You see this implemented when McDonald’s releases a new menu item in select stores for a limited time to see how the republic responds to it. If the hypothesis fails at the laboratory or trial phase, the next question is “Why?” and then start back at Step #1 if you have no idea, or come up with a new hypothesis and start at Step #3.
Step #5- Conclusion and Inclusion. After several run throughs in the experimental phase, what conclusions can you arrive at and how can this knowledge be included in your business plan and execution strategy? Does it change anything? What projections can you make with this inclusion, which then becomes another long range hypothesis and experiment you will evaluate at a later time. Make it then part of your plan and then work your plan.
As you solve for “X” and find the science of success for your business, know there is indeed a science to this. There is a science to everything. You just have to methodically solve for it. If you are sitting down in a chair, there are geometric and physical laws at work that permit it to hold your body. Science knows these laws so that it can produce hundreds and thousands of them just the same. There is a discovered formula. There is a science to walking, a science to eating, even something as seemingly random as a storm has a science in its definite causes which if acknowledged, the storm could be predicted long before it ever develops. The science of success for your business is the real gold you are looking for. When you find it, then you are able to systematize your business and make it produce like clockwork. A business is not what you really want to own. What you want to own is a system, which can be duplicated, expanded and patented as trade secrets. The science you discover will be your intellectual property, which has real value to investors. Once you have turned your science into intellectual property, you can sell it, rent it out, and that is where the big wealth is. This is where we’re talking at least millions, if not billions. Your scientific questions can be exactly that, million dollar questions.
What is a problem that you can solve for others?
How?...Now go find your gold and make an adventure of it.
This has been another preparatory lesson for those who want to get ready to tackle their business vision head on with The Baldwin Business Institute thebaldwinbusinessinstitute.eventbrite.com and want to get entrepreneurially fit to maximize their results, for these lessons will not be covered in class. Summer Class starts, Saturday, June 24th. Registration deadline is June 10th. There is a 10 student limit. Don't procrastinate.
In a previous lecture about a balanced lifestyle, some attention was given to the importance of a healthy mindset. As a new entrepreneur, your mind will be your life raft, and it will be important that it is working properly so that you can keep your head up and not go under and drown. So long as you keep your head, whatever disaster may strike, you can put things back together again. Success is not a destination, it is a journey. That journey is not a straight incline to the top. It is a wavy roller coaster to the top. When on a high, remember to be humble and grateful. When at a low, remember to be hopeful and gritty. Failures are only lessons. Success is your diploma after learning.
The uncertainties in business are immense and there will be many factors of which you will have absolutely no control over. One of the most frustrating among these are people, and dealing with people and everything they carry with them will be a very important part of building any business. If you do not understand human nature and/or you take things personally, people will drive you to drink.
You might as well go on and accept that people are funny creatures like water is wet. Deal with it. Anyone who has ever worked in customer service know exactly what I am talking about.
The good thing is that there is something over which you have 100% control over which most people do not control and that is your mindset. In the lecture, “In The Balance” it was stated, “Your psychology is how you interpret what is happening and the meanings you apply to it in relationship to yourself.” Increasing your intelligence will help you interpret things more accurately, yet once you see an event for what it really is, what does it then mean to you? Anything you want it to mean, and the meaning you give it will become your reality. One of the greatest mysteries is how our lives come to confirm our most deepest subconscious expectations, known as the self-fulfilling prophecy. If you expect to fail, you undoubtedly will. Life is not interested in trying to prove you wrong. Every event that occurs, you will interpret as a sign of your fictitious impending doom and you will begin to make preparations for it instead of getting about the business of winning. People win all the time. Why not you? They are no more fundamentally gifted than you. You may be smarter, better looking and more talented than them and yet they are ahead of you on all accounts most likely because they are not slowed down or dragged backwards by a heavy and darkened mindset, which may be one of your biggest liabilities.
If this is your case I am on, again don’t judge yourself. It is common. Just acknowledge it and fix it. Because it is a habit, it will not be easy to fix. You will have to be vigilant and persistent until it is your new habit of seeing the bright side of everything which is indeed there if you take the time to look for it.
Tell me where I lie:
Though it may be night now, the sun is shining at this moment somewhere in the world.
Though I look up and see clouds, sunshine is just behind it.
Everyday I wake up alive, I still have a chance.
“I have not failed. I just found 10,000 ways that don’t work.” -Thomas Edison when asked about his repeated failures in discovering the light bulb.
“Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? Can any one of you by worrying add a single hour to your life...See how the flowers of the field grow. They do not labor or spin. Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these. Have you ever seen color and design quite like it? If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, will he not much more clothe you?” -Jesus of Nazareth (Matthew 6:25-29)
I am more emotionally grateful for those who are being born than grieved by those have died. I celebrate the event of their life more than I mourn its ending. If more were not being born than dying, we would have become extinct 10,000 years ago. Life is winning.
If love and the forces of good were not winning every day more people would be kicked than kissed, more people would be hung than hugged, there would be more murders than making love and we would have gone extinct long ago. That we still exist is proof that love is still in the world and dominant, and that matters more than all the hate and violence we could ever talk about.
If justice were not the standard and norm, we would never recognize injustice.
It’s always Summer some place in the world.
I challenge you to list 10 more positive things that are always true no matter what, then list 10 things you are grateful for.
If you don’t want to be happy, continue to focus on what you don’t want. You will find plenty of justifiable reasons not to be happy and not to be hopeful, and who could argue with you?
However, if happiness is your goal, you need to always focus on these positive truths, and from there, you will find even more to be grateful for. Your mind works just like a magnifying glass. It magnifies whatever it focuses on in relation to everything else surrounding it.
Our material world is brought into being through the interplay of positive and negative forces. Everything that occurs has within it a positive and negative force. There is no birth without pain. Rain storms yields flowers, vegetation and a harvest of food. With every danger there is opportunity. No problem ever arises without its solution. The successful entrepreneur will focus on the solution while the masses will focus on the problem and will then pay the entrepreneur a fortune when has found it. In a car, whatever the driver is focused on is what the car drifts toward. Keep your eyes on the road. Keep your eyes on the prize. Focusing on the positive is not simply about feeling good and ignoring reality while living in la-la land. It is about choosing a reality while both realities exist and are equally valid.
Two brothers now grown lost their father to Lung Cancer. He was a chain smoker going through a pack a day. One of his sons has never smoked. The other son does just as heavily and is now developing Emphysema. The non-smoking son was asked why he doesn’t smoke. He replied, “Because my father smoked.” The smoking son was asked the same question. His response was “Because my father smoked.” Same father. Same reason for their choices. Different choices. Different experiences. Why were different choices made? The answer to that question is at the top of the list of determining factors on whether or not someone is going to succeed or fail.
Don King, the boxing promoter is famous for saying that he can call a fight accurately before the bell rings just by the look in the eyes between the two fighters. If Don King were to look at your eyes, would he see a winner? That could be determined by what it is that you are looking at. Are you focused on success or are you concerned about failure and embarrassment?
“All I do is win-win-win no matter what…” -DJ Khaled
This can be your mantra too.
Once you develop the talent of seeing the positive in everything, this will matter much when you begin applying it to people. As aforementioned, if going into business, you will not be able to escape having to deal with people. I am not advocating for being naive and to stop calling a spade a spade. There are many people out there who will try to prey on you and manipulate you if they can. You need to be discerning to see their intentions clear as day and have the courage to call it out when you find something you can not and will not work with. They are like this because they do not believe in justice and may need you to teach them differently. They have had to survive in a world with other people who do not respect justice and yet they want justice. When they do good work, they expect to be compensated fairly for it. So when they do, lavish them with praise and a fair payment. Show them that they do not have to use disingenuous methods to get what they want out of you and that you only respond to truth, honesty and authenticity. Be as hard and ruled as justice is, yet compassionate in your serving of it. When they learn your rules and see you as a just person they can trust, you will begin to see the truth in them, the person they really want to be. To have magic with people, it will be important for you to see that truth before they show it and treat them accordingly, meaning see the best in them. With them, before you even think to criticize them, let them know that you see this truth and that you respect it. You will see that there is something right with everyone if you take the time to look for it. Make it then a habit of looking for what is right about a person before paying attention to what is wrong. Take this as another truth:
“If you treat an individual as he is, he will remain as he is. But if you treat him as if he were what he ought to be and could be, he will become what he ought to be and could be.” -Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe
Once you begin seeing what’s right with people and treating them accordingly and not taking their dysfunctions personally or judging them for it, you will find yourself becoming one of the more popular personalities in town. People will begin seeing the best in you before they even think to criticize. When times are tough, they will look for your light of hope and optimism to push on for another day. This is a quality all great leaders have.
Those who chronically worry, fear, doubt, complain and criticize not only defeat themselves, they turn themselves into a stench around anyone who wants more out of life. People primarily want to feel good and if you can not help people to fulfill that need, how long do you think they will remain in your company? Having to deal with you will be a chore they resist and they will try to get away from you at the earliest feasible opportunity. If this is how you make your customers feel, you are going out of business for certain. If this is how your employees feel, it won’t matter how much you pay them, they are on the hunt for better prospects and their way out, and should you have found good talent, it will be very difficult to replace them and turnover is expensive. If this is how you make your partners feel, they too are looking to bail A.S.A.P. This is how important a positive mental attitude is.
“I've learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.” -Dr. Maya Angelou
Well, how do you make people feel? Before you poll anyone else, how do you make yourself feel? How do you feel right now? It is very likely you make people feel the way that you do right now and on a regular basis. Do you feel good, grateful, hopeful and excited? If not, take a hard look at your mental attitude and begin at once doing the work of shifting your focus and attention to the positive side of life which is indeed there. You can do this by:
Journaling your prayers in the evening, always beginning with praise, gratitude and hope.
Listening to upbeat and uplifting, feel good music.
Getting up early enough to catch the sunrise.
Exercising.
Taking note of your progress and celebrating your micro-wins.
Eating a healthy, balanced plant-based diet.
Joining the company of progressive and uplifting individuals, but be sure not to drag them down. Try to catch their positive energy.
Dress and look your best.
Affirm yourself daily.
Praise, affirm, encourage and show appreciation for others.
Turn off the news.
Meditate in nature.
Play at least weekly.
Laugh daily.
Surround yourself with beautiful things and in beautiful settings.
Learn about aromatherapy and use it. Lavender is an excellent feel good scent. Use any scent that transports you to your happy place. If pine scent takes you back to happy times at Christmas, use that.
Learn about Feng Shui and use it. Google it!
Give a hug and get a hug daily. Even if you might not need a hug, perhaps someone else does. Don’t deny them.
Make smiling your make up.
Commit at least one random act of kindness daily and include it in your prayer journal for the evening about how it made you feel.
Say “I love you” daily to someone whom you can say this genuinely to and they would understand.
Find something or someone adorable to love on, a lover, a pet, a baby. Get some cuteness in your life.
Sleep 8 hours a night.
Brighten your bedroom with lighter colors and point the head of your bed to the East.
In 2006, Rhonda Byrne produced a now classic documentary, “The Secret” as an introduction to “The Law of Attraction” and it goes into further scientific detail on the importance of developing a positive mental attitude and other ways to do that. If you have not seen it, or could use a reminder having not seen it in a while, I highly recommend watching it and then beginning a thorough study, research and investigation yourself on these principles and teachers in this documentary.
Doing as much of these things as you possibly can will change your life most dramatically before money will.
Make it then your 4th rule to: Keep your head up.
This has been another preparatory lesson for those who want to get ready to tackle their business vision head on with The Baldwin Business Institute thebaldwinbusinessinstitute.eventbrite.com and want to get entrepreneurially fit to maximize their results, for these lessons will not be covered in class. Summer Class starts, Saturday, June 24th. Registration deadline is June 10th. There is a 10 student limit. Don't procrastinate.
Did you know that you are already a great juggler? Even while sleeping, you can breathe, restore cells, beat your heart, fight off illnesses and digest food. While awake, many times we can find ourselves driving, talking, changing music and eating at the same time. We are amazing multi-taskers, and the reason we often forget that we are is because we’re so good at it. Well, transitioning into the entrepreneur's lifestyle is going to require that you remember how to do that, because like the talented juggler who can rotate ten objects at once, introducing just one more object can interrupt her rhythm and cause her to drop everything. Almost every new entrepreneur can relate to this kind of crash. Raise your hand. Those who remain in failure are those who do not pick up the pieces and learn a new rotation, a new rhythm which includes this one more additional item. It is challenging, but doable. Think not? Talk to any veteran Marine, and they will tell you about how much they do before 9AM than most people do all day. Perhaps bootcamp may be just the thing to teach you how to expand the juggling talents you already have to include your entrepreneurial responsibilities in addition to the ones you are carrying now.
Most people will not be able to immediately quit their full time job to go into building their business full time. Many will have to build part-time while maintaining a full-time job to cover their sustenance and handle parental responsibilities, stay fit, pay the bills, keep the house clean, the lover happy and friends engaged, and maybe even going to school to work on that next degree while trying to have some fun every now and again, you name it, phew!
You’ve probably been singing that jingle, “Ain’t nobody got time for that!” Again, it is challenging, if not at least initially, but it is done all the time and it is not beyond you. Do not allow yourself to use what you are juggling now as an excuse not to actualize your gifts in exchange for wealth and freedom. What could be more important? It could be the very reason you are in this earth plane existence in the first place.
So, if you’ve already experienced a disruption in your current rotation and rhythm and have dropped everything and crashed, sometimes that is the best thing that can happen in order to put things back together again the way they should be and discard the parts of your lifestyle which have no business being in there and is what is not making room for your business.
I have an older brother ten years ahead of me. I remember him teaching me how to clean our room once I got old enough to help. He made it fun by telling me to completely mess the room up. Whatever was not bolted down or fragile and was in disarray on the dressers got swiped to the floor. We then walked through what looked like a demolition scene with a trash bag. Whatever we picked up that we could not figure out a good use for had to go in the trash. After your disaster, you may have to do this with your life. Some call it purging. If you are carrying a responsibility that is not making you money, saving you time, improving your health, giving you energy or sustaining your basic necessities of yourself and your dependents, put it in the trash if it causing you not to have time, energy, money and focus for your business.
What you are left with, begin to stack your foundation appropriately. You dropped everything because you were knocked off balance. Whenever you are out of balance, always go back to your foundation, the fundamentals and build from there. When it comes to the fundamentals, you always hear about mind, body, and spirit, but what order do they go in? That order is spirit, mind, then body.
SPIRIT
Beginning with committing to your first responsibilities, you need to have inner peace and you need love for your spiritual well-being. You should be conscious of a universal and intelligent power that is greater than yourself and to feel your connectedness with it and bring yourself into alignment with its ways you can observe directly in nature, and that is empirically love and justice. Consciously connecting with and aligning with this power is the only route to true inner peace. It will also give you the power to love on a supernatural level, and the love you receive back are the true riches of life. Going to church or bible study may not be the most effective way for you to get this done. There are other ways to get this done, which might be more effective and can be done in less time. Simply ask yourself these questions?:
“Do I feel loving, grateful and appreciative for everything that I have?”
“Is my conscience clear?”
“Am I not afraid of death?”
Any no to these questions indicates spiritual unease or disease. If you’ve been using religion with its churches and bible studies and you’ve been in chronic spiritual disease more often than not, and you’ve been contributing your tithes and time to these services, it is time to try something else. It may be contributing to your spiritual disease itself. Put it in the trash.
Prayer:
Try journaling your prayers, simply writing letters to this universal intelligent power of which you are a part. Write your letters in the evening before bed and read your letters from one year prior in the morning. When you begin, if all you can go back is a day, do that until you can go back one week, until you can go back one month until you can go back one year. Quarterly, roll back even further: January 1st- 3 years, April 1st- 5 years, July 1st- 7 years, October 1st-10 years. Always begin your letters with praise and gratitude before you ask a question about what the next right move should be for you in the coming day. Ask empowering questions like:
“What’s trying to emerge in my life?”
“What gifts do I have to give?”
“How much power can flow through me?”
“What is the vision for my life?”
“What is the universe seeking to express through me?”
“What is the idea that the universe is trying make as my life?”
“What is the universe up to as my life?”
“What must I become to manifest the vision that I am beginning to see?”
“Where must I grow?”
“What must I unfold?”
“What habits must change?”
“What thought patterns must dissolve?”
“What events are challenging me to become this?”
“What lessons are there for me to learn?”
“What would love do?”
Make these questions apply to the content of your life and try to focus on just one question at a time. Behind every problem or event that you do not yet understand its purpose or cause, there is a question trying to ask itself. Behind every question, there is an answer trying to be revealed. Behind every answer, there is an action trying to be taken. Behind every action, there is a way of life trying to be born. Be inquisitive about every step of the process and beg for understanding and insight. You should ask in faith that all things are working together for your good. You should then only be concerned about being aware of what your part should be in this creative process. The answers may come to you in your dreams that evening, or a sign may show up over the next coming days that you will readily recognize because you have asked with intent. When you are given an inspired action to take, say YES! and act on it immediately without delay. The universal presence can only do for you what it can do through you. When you say YES and trust and honor it with immediate and confident action, that is when power happens, by giving it permission and opening yourself as a clear access point for its benevolent intentions. Reviewing your letters and comparing them with the present should strengthen your faith by allowing you to see and be conscious of how this universal power has been working within your life and responding to your questions as if it is alive and conscious, because indeed it is.
Meditation:
If your life is a hurricane, you need to find the eye and take a seat there to reset your energies at least once a day and preferably three. You can accompany meditation with every meal you eat with 15 minutes of stillness. I happen to burn white sage and lavender incense and will remain in meditation until they have burned to completion while drinking tea after breakfast and then after dinner. I even have a collection of calming instrumentals I use to lower my heart rate and slow my mental activity and aid me as I go into stillness and silence. ( Satygraha Prayer For Peace Playlist ) Enjoy! Create your own ritual for going into stillness. While in stillness, suspend thought about anything outside of your present space and moment. Breathe and observe your environment without thinking about it. Start with deep conscious breaths and then move your consciousness toward your heartbeat and then expand your observations outward. When starting this practice, it would be best to begin with quiet and calming spaces where you can focus. Nature is always best when weather and proximity to natural and quiet open spaces permit. As your power to focus increases, you will be able to meditate in the middle of pandemonium without raising your heart rate a beat.
Fasting:
To purify and transmute your spiritual power, it will be important to detach yourself from addictions, which is any compulsive activity done out of proportion to other activities that then throws you out of balance and in detriment with other necessary activities. Though you may know it is harming your health and robbing you of important time and maybe even money, energy or relationships, it is difficult to stop because there is something within you which craves it and at the root of it is spiritual pain and inadequacy. That inadequacy or sore spot creates a vacuum which is often only temporarily plugged with addictions: smoking, drinking, eating out of proportion, sleeping out of proportion, sexing out of proportion, spending, shopping and gathering out of proportion, gambling and risking out of proportion, attention seeking out of proportion, addictions to drama and violence. You should never guilt yourself for having an addiction. Self judgement serves no good purpose. What is important is for you to acknowledge that you have any of these addictions and know that they are not good for you and then begin seeking help, help to resolve the pain or inadequacy which is causing the vacuum and thus the addiction which never fulfills the vacuum. It is like eating food that somehow disappears in your throat and never reaches your stomach and so you never get full and satisfied. Addictions are exactly that, spiritual parasites and they drain your spiritual power.
The goal of fasting is temperance. Fasting allows you to put space and distance between you and this addiction for a period of time to break its hold on you. It is in essence starving the parasite to death and regaining the spiritual power it has been draining from you. If it is food, you go down to the bare necessities you may have for food. In this, most people can safely go without food for 3 days so long as you keep yourself adequately hydrated. As always consult your physician. If your addiction is sleep, work on something productive, engaging and passionate for 24 hours straight. Anyone can go for 40 days without sex or masturbation. Beyond bills, anyone can take their spending allowance down to $1 a day for 40 days. If attention is your addiction, go into isolation for at least a week.
Fasting should be done quarterly and dealing with just one addiction at a time. If you can not manage to complete the fast on your own will or with the help of an accountability partner, seek outside help. However, before you venture beyond your powers, be sure that you have connected with universal power and intelligence to aid you in your break from the addiction. It will be most important for you to pray and meditate throughout a fast. Pray for spiritual strength and it will be provided to you. Meditation will give you the awareness to allow you to see the addiction grabbing at you before it has a chance to take over your subconscious mind in an effort to survive and thus lessening its effect. Always start with the easiest addictions to break first to build your spiritual strength to begin progressively challenging the tougher, more deep-seated addictions. Each time you kill an addiction, it releases spiritual power it has held hostage you can then use for the next challenge. Most addictions will take 40 days to make a clean break from and the first 10 days will be the toughest.
Service:
No one came into this planet as a victim. Everyone came bearing gifts. It will then be important to give those gifts away and touch lives. It is why you are here. If your business is an avenue by which you serve your gifts, then 10% of your time, services and money should be dedicated in love to aid those who could benefit most from your gifts and can not afford to pay for them. This is your love offering. Engage with those you are helping with humility and learn about how your services are making a difference in their lives. Imagine yourself as them and then do whatever you are then inspired to do and would want done if the roles were reversed. This will increase your love muscle and the power of love and meaningful purpose for your work, you will find will be one of the most powerful forces at your disposal. It will keep you going and revive you when without it you would have given up 100 miles ago. When you touch lives, you will find your own life touched. It is in the giving and receiving of love that awakens your spirit, the GIANT within. When you give love from the truthful core of your spirit, this is what causes the world to fall in love with you and happiness is the result of when your needs to give love and receive love are met. What is that worth?
MIND
Free your mind and the rest will follow! The well-being of your psychology and intellect fall under the realm of mind.
Psychology:
Your psychology is how you interpret what is happening and the meanings your apply to it in relation to yourself. Unhealthy psychologies are superiority complexes, inferiority complexes, entitlement mentalities, victim mindsets, combativeness, siege mentalities, paranoia, anxiety, depression, feelings of inadequacy. Your psychology are these modes of thought and the feelings they produce. If I told you I’m taking you on an all expense-paid trip to Hawaii this weekend and you believed me, how would you feel? The thought of Hawaii has just produced that feeling, and the feeling is chemical. These chemicals can either be a healing balm to your body and brain or corrosive to your physical health, bringing on a wide array of diseases including hypertension, indigestion, ulcers and cancers. What’s most astonishing is that most times those interpretations are not rooted in facts, but are the fictional products of associative memory that try to help you anticipate the future based upon past experiences to help you avoid danger and pain but often get it wrong. How often do we make assumptions, prejudiced and biased conclusions and learn later how incorrect they were? Meanwhile, those thoughts created feelings that were probably unnecessary. Do you know of anyone who wants love but avoids it because of fear produced in association with a past hurt? For them, Love, while it might feel good is also associated with pain and weakness for them. Raise your hand if I have just talked about you. How we think almost directly influences how we respond to what happens in our lives, which has dramatic implications over the trajectory of our lives. Your thoughts of inadequacy could rob you of courage to make that sale or talk to that person who could be your soul mate causing you to miss a golden opportunity set up for you. It happens all the time. If your thoughts are producing fear, it is probably more often than not going to produce bad choices as well and thus bad results and a more challenging life trajectory. Many of our thought modes or attitudes were conditioned in us within our formative years by the time we were age 6 and most people never question, examine or challenge them for the duration of their lives and so their mind dictates how much money they are going to make, their health, who they will marry if at all and perhaps how long they will live and how they will die.
The field of Psychology deals with examining and understanding these attitudes and thought modes. Psychiatry deals with medically treating psychological disorders brought on by chemically based corrosive feelings which are produced by these thoughts and whereas the dissonance between reality and experience is significant to the extent that an individual can not function independently, such as in the case of Schizophrenia.
It may help to begin seeking therapy to aid you in examining, understanding and undoing some of these limiting thought modes, especially if you have not yet made peace with a past traumatic experience which continues to haunt you . I highly recommend it. Motivational seminars are also a great investment. Also, be careful of the messages of the music you listen to and the television programs you watch and how they make you feel, for they speak volumes to your subconscious mind. But for now, adopt these new more healthy and true thought modes and find music and entertainment which rhymes with these. Recite them with repetition until you accept them as your truth and reality:
“The universe bears no ill to me, I bear no ill to it.”
“And we know that all things work together for the good of those who love...and are influenced and inspired by its purposes.” -Romans 8:28
“Before I formed you in your mother’s womb I knew you. Before you were born, I consecrated you.”
-Jeremiah 1:5
“For if you remain silent at this time, relief and deliverance for the Jews will arise from another place, but you and your father’s family will perish. And who knows but that you have come to your royal position for such a time as this.” -Esther 4:14
“Jesus answered them, ‘Is it not written in your own law, ‘I have said you are gods’?” -John 10:34
“I said ‘You are gods, you are all sons of the Most High.” -Psalm 82:6 Intelligence:
Intelligence is awareness and understanding, to see and know what you are looking at. Intelligence brings enlightenment. Enlightenment eradicates ignorance and its resulting fears just like turning on the lights and the bogeyman disappears into its actual object. Bringing intelligence to your psychological framework so that you can reconfigure it to a more healthy pattern is internal intelligence, which includes emotional intelligence. Bringing intelligence to the framework of the society in which you live and understanding its trajectory and the forces of the universe within which you are having your being is external intelligence. Wherever that enlightenment can eliminate ignorance and fear in your mind, the better for you.
You will not have the opportunity to know all there is to know in this lifetime, but seek as much knowledge as you can get and make a habit out of thinking and making connections between seemingly disconnected pieces of knowledge to expand your awareness. Everything is connected. Engage in discussions with other great thinkers and share your knowledge. To be living within the information age with a vast wealth of knowledge unprecedented on just about any subject at our fingertips almost entirely removes any excuse for anyone to be ignorant. Especially if it frightens you, seek to understand it. As you learn and understand new things, you’ll be enticed to seek more knowledge, and this unquenched curiosity is an indicator of a healthy intellect. Never consider that you know everything. As you understand things better, it changes how you think, the choices you make because more options come into view and thus your entire life can be shifted with an expanded and active intellect.
To make feeding your intellect a part of your healthy lifestyle, “Read, read, read, never stop reading, and when you can’t read anymore, write.” -James Baldwin. If it is not providing you with new information that you can use or helping you understand your world better or cause you to think or stimulate your creative imagination over ‘what if?’, put it down. It is a waste of your time and attention. The same rule can be applied to any television programs you may decided to watch. What are you learning? Seeing things in perspective, old fears will be transformed into humor and wit which is also another sign of a healthy intellect.
BODY
So now in your balanced lifestyle regimen, you’re building your foundation by journaling your prayers in the evening, reviewing them in the morning, you’re meditating after each meal, you’re fasting quarterly, you’re serving weekly, you’re seeking therapy and motivation, reciting positive affirmations and listening to uplifting music and always have a good book in hand. What’s next? Your earthship, which is the body you see in the mirror. To be effective at the work you will be taking on, you must keep it in top shape. You may have heard of some of these tips before, but to balance, you must now make them a rule for your life:
Sleep 8 hours per day in a dark and quiet room. TV off!
Drink 8 glasses of water per day.
Eat a balanced plant based diet.
Exercise: 4 aerobic sessions per week, 3 strength training sessions per week, flexibility and stretching daily.
That’s it! Sleep, drink, eat and exercise. How to do that most effectively, I will not go into extensive detail here for concern of making this blecture much too long. Therefore, I am suggesting you google it, visit the library, talk to your doctor, your fitness trainer or a dietician.
FOUR
4 is the number of balance like 4 seasons, 4 elements, 4 directions, 4 legs to a table, 4 limbs, 4 wheels to a car. Now I am outlining 4 practices to make up the foundation of your balanced lifestyle, which is Spirit, Mind and Body:
SPIRIT:
Pray
Meditate
Fast
Serve
MIND:
Affirmations
Positive Input (Music, Television)
Therapy & Motivational Seminars
Reading
BODY:
Sleep
Drink
Eat
Exercise
LAYERING
Once you have these practices as the core of your life as your first responsibilities to yourself, you can begin adding on one responsibility at a time, starting with how you provide for your current sustenance, which may be your job. Your next responsibilities are to your immediate household family, the children or any dependents and the spouse or life partner. Get as much assistance with this as you can. While it is important for you to own these responsibilities, you can not afford to allow it to overwhelm your life. Those members of your family who are more independent or can be, must be given limits on their need of you. Just like they can be of great assistance to you in the navigation of your life through sporadic illnesses and money challenges, be there as an assistant to them, but they must take up ownership of responsibilities of themselves if they can. These exceptions would be children age 6 and under and mobility handicapped members of your family. If you can afford to hire a nanny or caretaker, do so, or share these responsibilities with someone else like a spouse or older children in the caretaking of children, or siblings in the caretaking of elderly parents. Do not try to carry the full weight of another human being on your own if you do not have to.
After you have fulfilled your responsibilities to yourself, to your job and to your household family, if you have one, your next responsibility is to your business. Your business is where your wealth and freedom for the future lies. Friends and extended family do not get to interfere with that.
Stop there. Do not add anything else to your plate until you are proficiently juggling these responsibilities with ease for at least 90 days of MASTERY.
When you are ready to begin adding to the mix, add them one at a time per 90 days. The moment it begins to interfere with your responsibilities to yourself, your job, your family or your business, set it down.
The criteria the added responsibility must pass is:
Will it make you money?
Will it save you time?
Is it good for your health in (Spirit, Mind, Body)? Social health can be included in this.
A yes to any of these is a license to go ahead and try it.
Including fun, recreational and entertainment based activities into your lifestyle which will connect you with others is important, but only after you have mastered the basics. Until then, engage in them sporadically, or at least once a quarter.
The next layer of responsibilities you have are to your extended relations which include adult siblings, cousins, aunts, uncles, nieces, nephews, grandparents and best friends. These are those with whom you have a personal relationship. It will be important for you to differentiate between the healthy relationships and unhealthy relationships. In healthy relationships, both parties mutually support one another, help each other grow, heal and add the riches of love to each other’s lives. In unhealthy relationships, there is codependency, abuse, lies, manipulation, distrust, disingenuousness, one or both parties diminishes the other, they stifle each other’s progress, there is jealousy, usury and one or both parties drain the resources of time, money and energy from one another with negative returns on investment. Do yourself a mighty favor and disengage from all unhealthy relationships without even the need of an explanation. You don’t have time for unhealthy relationships, simply put. You are not going to fix them or make them better by continuing to engage in them. Remove yourself at once and if the relationship has any hope, the other party will after some time reach out to you reformed and you will recognize the change. Until then, save that time and energy and devote it to nurturing your healthy relationships. Holidays and birthdays are excellent times to visit with these special people in your life, but instead of taking time out to spend with them, find creative ways to involve and include them in your life in connection with your spiritual work, mental work, body work, your job, your family, or your business or figure out how to get involved in their lives. You can also put them on a list and set up a regular time like Sundays at 5PM to check-in with someone on your list.
Your last responsibility, which must be taken up at some point is your responsibility to you community, which includes many people you may not have a personal relationship with. This includes your neighborhood, your city, your state, your nation and the global community. This can also include your cultural and ethnic community, a faith community, or a professional community or a hobby/interest/lifestyle community. You may belong to expansive social networks and clubs with members you have a shared identity with as members of such organization or club, like fraternities, sororities, a university alumni, a workplace, a church, mosque or synagogue. These are all your communities. By raising a healthy and strong business, you will be already doing a great deal to fulfill your place in your communities with the provisioning of services, goods, employment, and tax revenue. Your business may even allow you to engage in philanthropic services.
To bring this full circle as you see, your ability to handle each level is supported and empowered by your mastery of the level beneath it. When stacked properly, each successive level actually becomes easier to manage when things are in order and you get to enjoy the richness that is your life and it will not be draining. By building a strong and balanced foundation, you are able to bring your best self into the workplace and do your best work. When you do that, you can earn the best that you are capable of earning right now. Earning the best that you are able to right now will help you fill your place within your family or support initial resources to your launch your business. Being financially independent through your business can allow you to have more time with friends and extended family. Doing all these things than automatically serves your communities in many ways. This is why order and balance is so important.
MULTITASKING
The outlook of tending to all of this may seem overwhelming to you. Don’t be. There are many opportunities to tend to multiple matters simultaneously like juggling. You can do community service with your family and friends and be serving your community at the same time. This serves your spiritual, family, social and community responsibilities all on the same clock. You don’t need to go to the gym to exercise. You can join a community sports league and serve your body needs, your social needs, your needs for recreation and community without spending any extra time. You can join a book club or a support group and take care of your social and mental needs at the same time. If Bible study is helpful to you, that’s 4 for 1: spiritual, social, mental, and community. My point is, there is enough time for everything that is important, if you are creative, resourceful and organized. When you redesign your life, keep a log of what points you are hitting with each activity.
MAINTENANCE
Expect that after the end of each quarter, 90 days, your new organized and structured lifestyle is going to wear and if you are conscious, you will begin to feel the imbalance with lethargy, mental fog and a slacking in your rituals. It happens to the best of us, especially in the beginning. Don’t judge yourself. No one is perfect. Even though these are my aims, to be honest, on my best days I hit the mark about 80% on the regular, but I keep trying and I do get better at it and I am seeing the results. In the meantime, I am patient with myself as I grow, which is a process that is likely to take years. You ought to do likewise. Balancing your life as herein prescribed is no quick and easy fix for your life. However, if you stick to it and get up every time you fall down, you will begin to stand more than you fall just like learning the balance necessary to walk. Give yourself some time, at least 7 years, and your life will have to be dramatically different than it is now by law. I guarantee it. Believe it. Just like after every 12,000 miles you should take your car in for a realignment, you will need to bring your life in for a realignment at least once a quarter. These are what quarterly retreats or vacations or for, to take a break from your grind, breathe, decompress and reset your life or begin to change directions as you may begin moving into new seasons in your life. When you do, give your life a checkup in all of the layers I have outlined. Reset your schedule and then return to your refreshed, realigned and maybe altered balance for your life. Now go live your life...balanced!
This has been another preparatory lesson for those who want to get ready to tackle their business vision head on with The Baldwin Business Institute thebaldwinbusinessinstitute.eventbrite.com and want to get entrepreneurially fit to maximize their results for these lessons that will not be covered in class. Summer Class starts, Saturday, June 24th. Registration deadline is June 10th. There is a 10 student limit. Don't procrastinate.
Don't yet believe in the power of balance? Learn about what happened when the wolves, a key predator to the ecosystem at Yellowstone National Park were reintroduced after 70 years of absence. If balance can do that for a nearly 3500 sq mile national park, larger than the states of Rhode Island and Delaware combined, imagine what it could do for your life. At a point, it will feel like everything falling into place.
