300 Day Challenge – Day 80

Well, I am at do 80 of my 300 Day Challenge of reading the scrolls in Og Mandino’s “The Greatest Salesman in the World” book. I am a third of my way through reading the Scroll Marked III.

So how am I doing in keeping up with reading each scroll 3 times a day? The below picture tells all:

I must say that is it challenging to read a scroll three times a day. Some days I have little down time, and am on the go from get up to shut eye. You may notice that I did manage to get five days in a row. These days just happen to coincide with me going to work.

I am making a more conscious choice to set the time aside to read the scrolls. Scheduling time in my diary each day. This is helping to keep me on track a lot better. Previously I used to rely on my memory.

So a key take out for any new habit or goal – write it down and schedule the activity in your diary. The scheduling is important as it means that you are taking it seriously and have set the time aside to complete the activity.

Another take out it to record your progress. As you can see in the above picture, I have written out the 30 days and am marking my progress. Be honest here. You will only be cheating yourself if you don’t record truthfully how you are going. This is feedback on your progress. It is not a judgement. It is only a fact.

You can, as I have, then choose a different behaviour to bring you back on track, and help you to reach your goal.

until next time

meta

Garth

Scroll I Takeout – Success is a State of Mind

Another takeout from Scroll I, is that Success is a State of Mind.

Nothing new there. This carries on the theme of the first scroll and that is about changing yourself.

Taking control of your thinking. Knowing that if you do, you can change your circumstances. What you are doing and where you are going.

A theme that I promote is living at cause. What does that mean?

There are two basic ways of living. Being at Cause or being at Effect. Much is written about these two. Living at cause is defined as being in control of our own destiny. Actively choosing how we want to act or react to life.

Living at Effect is being the victim of circumstance. That life is happening to you.

Scroll I is about living at Cause. Of choosing to live a new life that is actively chosen. Choosing to develop good habits and behaviours.

Until next time

meta

Garth

Scroll I Takeout – Patience

So, what are some takeouts from scroll I?

The first thing that I have noticed is that the book is written to emphasise the positive. To point the reader along the path of success. That success is a habit and habits can be learnt.

I don’t know about you, but I am impatient to learn and master a new task. If I don’t get it within a few days or a couple of weeks, I move on.

The first scroll exhorts one to be patient. That good things take time to come to fruition.

This is good advice, for I have many days ahead of me to complete this challenge that I have set myself. Patience is a good habit to learn. Patience with ones self for the process of learning. To not skip ahead to the next scroll to find out what the next lesson is!! To stay with the plan of only reading one scroll at a time. To master the lesson or principle contained in that scroll.

until next time

meta

Garth

The Scroll Marked I – Today I begin a new life

The first scroll is about starting afresh and developing new, positive, habits supportive of success and happiness.

How does it do this? The scroll is littered with metaphor. Shedding the old, being in a place of plenty and success, and much more.

The underlying message is that success is a state of mind. Successful people have good habits that support their success. Og Mandino rightly points out something that neuroscience is recognising, is that you can only replace a unsupportive habit with a new habit.

Another principle is that repetition a of habit that you want to develop is the path to success. To this end, the instruction is to read each scroll three times a day morning after waking, after lunch and just before bed,, with this last reading out loud. And to repeat this process for 30 days for each scroll. There are 10 scrolls.

Hence, the 300 Day Challenge!

Why read each scroll 3×30 times? As Mr Mandino writes in this scroll, the repetition allows the teaching to move from the conscious mind to the sub/unconscious mind. This is where habits and beliefs reside.

Another secret is in the timing of the reading. When we wake up in the morning, the mind is in the Alpha state. The information will go more easily into the sub-conscious mind. Again, the reading before bed, allows the material to be worked on by the sub-conscious while you sleep.

until next time

Meta

Garth

The Greatest Salesman in the World 300 Day Challenge

So, I started reading Og Mandino’s “The Greatest Salesman in the World” the other day. It has been on my reading list for some time after coming across reference to it numerous times over the years.

I’ve picked it up and put it down a couple of times over that time. Finally I found some time and started reading it in earnest.

I didn’t know what to expect as I started reading as I hadn’t read any reviews. I have a habit of seeing a book I think I might want to read / study so buy it. I mostly judge a book by the context I come across it. Normally when I am reading another book! As a consequence my Kindle library is growing rather large!

Anyway, here I am progressing through the start of the book, enjoying the story and wondering where this was leading. Then the ten scrolls are mentioned as the secret to the merchants success.

I don’t know about you, but I am trying to get out of the habit of just picking up a book, reading it cover to cover, then putting on the shelf and think to myself “I must do ……. (fill in the blank)'”. Oh I have made notes about ways of being and habits that I want to embody, as I make my way through the book. Unfortunately good intentions do not always translate into ways of being…..

As I am reading an idea started to form in my mind. Why don’t I take on the challenge of the first scroll and read each one three times a day for 30 days. So my 300 day challenge was born.

I have completed the first two scrolls and am now on day 10 of the third scroll.

I must say that the experience is interesting. I struggle with the wording from time to time to time. But time will and 300 days will tell how well I have taken these lessons on board.

Until next time

Garth

Act Your Way Into Feeling Good

• 

John C. Maxwell, in Failing Forward makes the following comment:

“Don’t wait until you feel positive to move forward. Act your way into feeling good. That’s the only way to start thinking more positively about yourself.”

I can vouch for the truth of this statement. Waiting only burns time and little else. By changing my thinking and acting more positive, I became more positive. Did the change happen over night? Hell no, but it happened and continues to happen as I choose to start my day positive and have a partner who prods me when I don’t!

Amy Cuddy has proven this with her 2 minute power pose idea that she shared in her iconic TED Talk and in her book. People who stood or sat in a powerful confident pose for 2 minutes a day developed confidence.

As I pointed out in a previous post, we can only Be as much as we already Are. We have to change who we Are to become someone different. Consciously changing our thoughts and actions begins this metamorphosis into the new person we have chosen to be.

So, stop waiting for the right moment or feeling, start acting the way that you want to be.

Until next time

metta

Garth

We are Living in Uncertain Times

At the moment we are all living in unprecedented and uncertain times. The COVID-19 disease is sweeping the world and impacting everyone’s lives in same way.

As someone wise once said, “This too will pass”.

But in the meantime, stay well and look after yourself and family. Also remember to look after your mental as well as physical health.

The Be Do Are Paradox

A lot of us try to Have by Doing the activities we identify as needing to be done to get the goal. Isn’t it a logical to start at A and progress through B, then C then D etc to get to our goal.

The challenge is that who we are and how we think will invariably get in the way of a logical progression and in many cases, stop us from achieving our goal.

Charles Haanel put it very well when he wrote: “We must “be” before we can “do”, and we can “do” only to the extent which we “are”, and what we “are” depends upon what we “think”.“

Our success depends largely on how well our thoughts and thinking are aligned with where we want to be. These will drive our actions, the Do, and determine our results. Either being on target or a miss.

A good example of this is from my own life. Many years ago, when my children were quite young, I thought it would be great to have a ‘flying fox’ line in our backyard. The backyard had a great slop on it and a bit of space for a 20 metre line. I had the plan in my mind of what the set-up would look like. I put in a post for the start, and then got no further.

The trouble was that I was thinking about all the reasons not to continue and the challenges that I needed to overcome. End result, a stalled project that never eventuated and the children missing out on having a great amount of fun.

A better state of mind would have been to acknowledge the challenges, talk some of them over with my then wife and her builder father to find solutions. To think of success, rather than obstacles.

Change your thinking, change your outcomes

meta

until next time

Garth

A Great Bookend to My Last Post

In my last post I talked about Every Child should be taught to expect Success.And how labels are applied to some of us as we are growing up.

This interview points out the challenges that we have created for our children by going in the opposite direction. Of removing barriers, of giving medals for just participating, of not creating strong character and strong self-esteem.

This interview of  Simon Sinek speaking about Millennials in the workplace of today, and social media addiction

A very thought provoking and inspiring speech with Tom Bilyeu

 

 

metta

Garth

Every Child Should Be Taught to Expect Success

Orison Swett Marden wrote “Every child should be taught to expect success, and to believe that he was born to achieve, as the acorn is destined to become an oak.”

He then went on to say: ” It is cruel for parents and teachers to tell children that they are dull or stupid, or that they are not like others of their age. They should inspire them, instead, with hope and confidence and belief in their success birthright. A child should be trained to expect great things, and should believe firmly in his God-given power to accomplish something worth while in the world.”

How many adults have thus been programmed from an early age and are therefore not living up to their full potential. What mindsets have been set so a to limit their belief in what they are truly capable of?

I’ve written previously in this blog about Labels and Glass Ceilings. For this is what this programming creates: false labels and false ceilings of ability.

The first challenge to removing the false labels and glass ceilings is to understand that we are capable of more than we think we are.

The second challenge is to learn believe that the impossible is possible. To dare to dream just a little and then to go out and get runs on the board. This will build the self-esteem which says – I can do this.

From this position of I know I can do this then starts to grow the belief that I can do something that I haven’t tied yet! This is the birth of self-confidence.

Getting small runs on the board builds the belief that I can do this. Celebrating these runs builds the neural networks of capability and possibility. We start to learn that we can fly. Bit by bit as we gain confidence through small wins each day, then bigger win and bigger wins. As we build this storehouse of success, we build the foundation of confidence to tackle bigger tasks and goals that we wouldn’t have thought possible before we started the journey.

It all starts with getting small wins on the board and celebrating them!