Saturday, April 28, 2007

Fail to Plan, Plan to Fail

It has been almost four months since I added to this blog and I am mortified by my failings.

I think the worst feeling is that I lost faith in the morning person ideal.

I can reflect on my productivity over that period and say it was not the best.

Anyway, I hope I can put more into planning and developing this blog from now on.

FAIL TO PLAN, PLAN TO FAIL!

Friday, January 5, 2007

Day 1 - 6:47AM

Cool! A great recovery, and now I am back waking up before 7AM!~


Snowed a little last night, so it was nice to be able to wake up despite the cold.


Wednesday, January 3, 2007

Slept in again...

OK, slept in again. Now how do I stay motivated to do this?

Well, today I am going to look at "Unlimited Power", by Anthony Robbins, to try and find an answer.

It just so happens that I open the book to p. 111, which is the first page of Chapter VII: The Syntax of Success.

It starts with an interesting quote from the Bible:

"Let all things be done decently and in order" - 1 Corinthians 14:40

OK, I like order, even if I do sometimes live in chaos.

The central theme of the book "Unlimited Power" is the idea that one can achieve success by modelling successful people. As an addition to this theory, Robbins suggests that there is a "syntax of action", which means that there is a way in which we order our actions, and that ordering can make a big difference in whether we produce successful results or not.

Applied in the sphere of what I call the "psychology of success", what Robbins is saying is that the brain perceives things differently depending on the order in which they are presented. It is like progamming a computer, Robbins says, you have to get the order right.

The analogy between the brain, which operates based on a "psychology of success", and a computer is not necessarily a good one. The issue of the subconscious is most critical in success, according to my concept of a "psychology of success". So we need to pay attention to the programming of the subconscious.

Robbins uses the term "strategy" for factors including internal representations, "necessary submodalities", and the required syntax. These factors work together to product a particular result.

We need to know what keys to hit in order to achieve a certain mental state in our "mental biocomputer", according to Robbins. We all have the same neurology, asserts Robbins. This is hardly true, so I am starting to become sceptical...

You basically need to find people who already have financial success or fulfilling relationships, and you just need to discover their strategy and apply it to produce similar results at the same time as saving tremendous amounts of time and effort.

Syntax is the part about getting the order of this strategy right. If you work out the right combination you can open your vault and if you find the combination of other you can open their vaults too. (Not that we are going to rob anyone...)

The "senses" are the building blocks of our syntax - these can be internal and external. Syntax is a matter of how we put together the blocks of external experience and internal representations.

Tuesday, January 2, 2007

As A Man Thinketh - James Allen

While IR laws are a matter of balance, would an employer dismiss a hard-working employee?

"Here is a man who is wretchedly poor. He is extremely anxious thathis surroundings and home comforts should be improved, yet all thetime he shirks his work, and considers he is justified in trying todeceive his employer on the ground of the insufficiency of hiswages. Such a man does not understand the simplest rudiments ofthose principles which are the basis of true prosperity, and is notonly totally unfitted to rise out of his wretchedness, but isactually attracting to himself a still deeper wretchedness bydwelling in, and acting out, indolent, deceptive, and unmanlythoughts." (James Allen, As a Man Thinketh)

Isn't the matter more one of ensuring that there is proper payment for overtime?

"Here is an employer of labour who adopts crooked measures to avoidpaying the regulation wage, and, in the hope of making largerprofits, reduces the wages of his workpeople. Such a man isaltogether unfitted for prosperity, and when he finds himselfbankrupt, both as regards reputation and riches, he blamescircumstances, not knowing that he is the sole author of hiscondition." (James Allen, As a Man Thinketh)

Ultimately, there are limits to what law can achieve in IR - motivation and honesty are moral values that have their own just reward:

"I have introduced these three cases merely as illustrative of thetruth that man is the causer (though nearly always is unconsciously)of his circumstances, and that, whilst aiming at a good end, he iscontinually frustrating its accomplishment by encouraging thoughtsand desires which cannot possibly harmonize with that end. Suchcases could be multiplied and varied almost indefinitely, but thisis not necessary, as the reader can, if he so resolves, trace theaction of the laws of thought in his own mind and life, and untilthis is done, mere external facts cannot serve as a ground ofreasoning." (James Allen, As a Man Thinketh)

Day 3 - 6:00AM

Awoken by a phone call today.

I guess the positive is that I could wake up at 6AM even in winter, although I wish I could have "slept in" until 7AM.

Now I am reading "As a Man Thinketh", which is available on Gutenberg.

Monday, January 1, 2007

Success Library - 10 Books to Read Over and Over Again

1. The Richest Man in Babylon
2. Don't Eat the Marshmallow... Yet!
3. Success Through a Positive Mental Attitude
4. Think and Grow Rich
5. Making Money Made Simple
6. Unlimited Power
7. The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People
8. People Skills
9. Emotional Intelligence
10. Men Are From Mars; Women Are From Venus

Day 2 - 7:00AM

Sprung out of bed this morning!

Saying for the day from Napoleon Hill's Success Through a Positive Mental Attitude:

"What the mind can conceive and believe, the mind can achieve."

And the difference between positive mental attitude (PMA) and negative mental attitude in the workplace:

"Just look about you. Notice those people who enjoy their work and those who don't. What's the difference between them? Happy, satisfied persons control their mental attitude. They take a positive view of their situation. They look for the good, and when something isn't so good, they look first to themselves to see if they can improve it. They try to learn more about their work so that they can become more proficient and make their work more satisfying to themselves and their employer.

"But those who are unhappy clutch to their NMA tightly. Indeed, it is almost as if they want to be unhappy. They look for everything about which they can complain: the hours are too long; lunch hours are too short; the boss is too crabby; the company doesn't give enough holidays or the right kind of bonuses. Or maybe they even complain about irrelevant things, such as: Susie wears the same dress every day; John the bookkeeper doesn't write legibly, and so on, and so on. Anything - just so they can be unhappy. And they succeed very well, too. They are decidedly unhappy people - on the job and generally elsewhere too. NMA possesses them entirely."
(Napoleon Hill & W. Clement Stone, Success Through a Positive Mental Attitude, pp. 156-157)