The 2%er/98%er Profile and How to Become More Successful

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

Part 4 Part 4a

Part 4b

Part 5 Part 5a -- Fakery-1

Part 5b -- Fakery-2

Part 6

The 2%er/98%er Profile and How to Become More Successful

Core Power and Core Helplessness -- Freedom, Health, Life-Extension & Biological/Physical Immortality -- Part 4

by Frederick Mann -- 10/1/07 (under construction; first version should be completed in about 2-3 months.)

(Note on word usage: Some political words, like "government," "state," "country," "nation," "law," etc., may not represent reality very well (they are often used to mislead) -- see Political Fakery? and the "Concept Formation" and "Does the government really exist?" videos. However, it would be difficult to communicate without using such words, so I'm using "government*," "state*," "country*," "nation*" and "law*." The "*" is the equivalent of crossing my fingers, to indicate that I may be using a "fake word.")

Contents -- Part 4

"The mission of ImmInst is to conquer the blight of involuntary death."

"The Methuselah Mouse Prize is the premiere effort of The Methuselah Foundation; a scientific competition designed to draw attention to the ability of new technologies to slow and even reverse the damage of the aging process, preserving health and wisdom in a world that sorely needs it."

Health, Life-Extension & Biological/Physical Immortality

Over the years, I've periodically asked myself: "Why should I bother with trying to do something about "human betterment?"; "What would make it worthwhile to continue the quest of persuading people to "upgrade" themselves?" The answer is that could be a big prize waiting for us: Biological/Physical Immortality.

I certainly don't like the idea of having to die. Dying can be regarded as the "ultimate helplessness! If there were more 2%ers in the world -- and if more of those who regard Biological/Physical Immortality as desirable were 2%ers -- then that could speed up the development of the technologies that will bring about Biological/Physical Immortality.

Improving individual health is a good starting point. Various parts of, and references on, this page may be relevant to your personal health:

For more details on Biological/Physical Immortality, do a Google search for "Biological Physical Immortality."

In Order to Become Successful at Something, You Have to Use Enough of Your Mind/Brain AND You Have to Use Your Mind/Brain at a High Enough Level of Consciousness.

Supercharge Your "Alpha Mind"

I have a book The Silva Mind Control Method by Jose Silva and Philip Miele (available on Amazon.com).

Consider this proposition: In Order to Become Successful at Something, You Have to Use Enough of Your Mind/Brain AND You Have to Use Your Mind/Brain at a High Enough Level of Consciousness. Consider the possibility that when people don't succeed at something, an important and vital factor may be that they're not using enough of their mind/brain and they're using their mind/brain at a level of consciousness that's too low. In other words, to succeed you may have to expand how much of your mind/brain you use and you may have to use your mind/brain at a higher level of consciousness.

Based on what I've seen and experienced so far, the chances seem good to me that a significant portion of those who've been unsuccessful in the past at making money online (or in their lives generally), by applying Silva UltraMind techniques and implementing some of my other suggestions, will be able to shift to a path where success becomes possible. If the power and quality of the "Silva UltraMind Centering Exercise" is representative of the rest of Silva UltraMind, then I recommend Silva UltraMind highly -- even if some of their "ESP-type" claims are overstated. (No matter how materialistic and skeptical you might be about "ESP," you may still be able to benefit a great deal from Silva UltraMind. The James Randi Educational Foundation offers "a one-million-dollar prize to anyone who can show, under proper observing conditions, evidence of any paranormal, supernatural, or occult power or event." While I'm open to the possibility of "ESP" and "spiritual/mystical phenomena," as far as I know, nobody has produced any credible evidence for any such phenomena. Maybe, some day, someone will produce credible evidence and claim Randi's one-million-dollar prize. Until such credible evidence is produced, it may be better to assume that beliefs in "spiritual/mystical phenomena" are misguided attempts to escape from Core-Helplessness.)

Chapter 1 of The Silva Mind Control Method is called "Using More of Your Mind in Special Ways." Chapter 6 is called "Speed Learning." In respect of any area of your life, you can consider how much of your mind/brain you're using, and the level of consciousness at which you're using it, as being measurable by a "win-lose switch." If the reading is below a certain "critical level" or "success threshold," you're on a path where success is highly unlikely or impossible. To become successful, you may have to increase the setting of your "win-lose switch." You can probably do that by expanding how much of your mind/brain you use and by using your mind/brain at a higher level of consciousness. The free 9-Lesson Silva UltraMind Course includes:

If you apply some Silva UltraMind techniques and implement my other suggestions, you will use more of your mind/brain and at higher levels of consciousness.

Get Luck on Your Side

I used to reject the idea of "luck" out of hand. That started changing when I read the book Fooled by Randomness: The Hidden Role of Chance in Life and in the Markets by Nassim Nicholas Taleb. (He is also the author of The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable)

Then I "dug out" a book on luck by Richard Wiseman, which I'd bought a few years ago, but hadn't read. To my surprise I found that Wiseman had studied luck scientifically.

I now suspect that luck may be one of the most important success factors for many people. Just learn to be lucky!

Actually, it's more involved than that. You may need to prepare and set things up so you can "take advantage of luck" when opportunities become available to you. In Chabge Your Luck: The Scientific Way To Improve Your Life!, Dr. Richard Wiseman provides four Principles and 12 Subprinciples:

But... if you suffer from Core Helplessness Mentality (CHM), you may be incapable of taking advantage of opportunities when they become available to you.

Both the Piepers and Seligman seem to think that behaviors learned during childhood can later be unlearned if sufficient effort is applied. This may be true for 2%ers. Typical 98%ers may be too helpless in their cores to unlearn their destructive habits. 98%ers either confront and overcome their Core-Helplessness, or they remain stuck at low levels of success for life.

Learned Helplessness

The book Helplessness by Martin E. P. Seligman contains a theory of helplessness. He doesn't seem to address the "deep helplessness imprints." (Seligman is also the author of What You Can Change and What You Can't, in which he writes (in contrast to Janov), "Reliving childhood trauma does not undo adult personality problems.")

A basic experiment illustrates the nature of the origin of helplessness (as described by Seligman): A "naive" dog (one that hasn't been specially treated or conditioned) is placed in a "shuttle-box" (a box with two compartments, separated by a barrier a dog can jump). Electric current is applied to the compartment with the dog, shocking it. The dog soon jumps across the barrier into the other compartment, escaping the shock. A second dog, secured in a hammock, is "conditioned" with electric shock. This dog can shut off the current by pressing its nose against a panel. It quickly learns to do this. When this dog is placed in the shuttle-box and current applied, it also soon jumps across the barrier, escaping the shock. A third dog is also conditioned in the hammock. But this dog has no way to escape the shock. When it is placed in the shuttle-box and the current applied, it lies down and whines, enduring the shock.

(Note that in the above paragraph, dog one is shocked in a shuttle-box, dogs two and three first in a hammock then in the shuttle-box. It may be necessary to read the previous paragraph several times so you understand the mechanics of the experiment.)

According to Seligman's theory, the third dog acquired "learned helplessness." In the hammock it learned that no action it could take would change the outcome of being shocked. It learned that the outcome was independent of its actions -- and it generalized this "conclusion." The dog was affected in three important aspects: motivationally, cognitively, and emotionally. In the shuttle-box the third dog was not sufficiently motivated to persist in finding a way to escape the shock. The cognitive link between action and consequence (outcome) had been severed in the dog's brain as a result of the conditioning in the hammock. And the dog had become more prone to anxiety.

Many (if not most) humans have to some extent been conditioned like the third dog. We were all helpless babies... and human babies remain relatively helpless for a much longer time than the babies of most other mammals... Many of us experience a variety of situations where we are helpless to influence certain outcomes -- exemplified by phrases like "nothing is as certain as death and taxes."

Learned helplessness tends to be a generalized phenomenon. When a dog or human "learns" that there is no connection between action and outcome in a particular domain, this is often generalized to other areas of life...

The above section on learned helplessness has been adapted from some of my earlier writings. I now realize that, because of the deeper helplessness imprints identified by Janov, the above is unlikely to be of much benefit to 98%ers.

"If you want to change the soup, you first need to change the bowl!" -- Frederick Mann

The Helplessness Context

Erhard identified three "fundamental forces" that form a context that keeps world hunger in place:

So, according to Erhard, world hunger is kept in place by a context of scarcity, no solutions, and inevitability. The context with its three "forces" tends to be pervasive and invisible to most. Giving starving people food is like stirring the soup. It changes the content, but not the context. As long as the context of scarcity, no solutions, and inevitability remains unchanged, once the food aid stops the famine returns. So, in the long run, food aid itself can't solve world hunger. The context of scarcity, no solutions, and inevitability must be changed before world hunger can be solved.

I contend that scarcity, no solutions, and inevitability are important aspects of helplessness. So, I describe the overall context as helplessness. 98%ers typically operate out of a context of helplessness. The helplessness context tends to pervade their lives. They also tend to deny it, so their helplessness context tends to be invisible to them. So, I have now identified two more components of the typical helplessness context: Denial and Invisibility. So far, the helplessness context consists of:

People trying to make money online without success -- 98%ers -- can be thought of as suffering from "money-hunger." If you give them money (content), it changes nothing in the long run. There's an invisible context that keeps their money-hunger in place. They may buy all the books and ebooks they want on how to become successful, attend all the seminars and workshops they can find, etc. (stirring the soup), with no results -- for as long as they do nothing about the helplessness context that keeps their money-hunger in place.

In a similar way to starving people being victims, 98%ers can be seen as victims of their lack-of-money situation. In both cases, people tend to acquire a "victim mentality" -- covered in more detail under How Have You Been Victimized? and Recognizing Victim Mentality (synonym for CHM). So, I'm adding Victim Mentality as an important component of the helplessness context:

But there's more. Consider Fear of Rejection -- I think it should go to the top of the list. So, now the helplessness context consists of:

And there's still more! Consider the examples of CHM (right column) and PWS (right column). In my opinion, what stands out most about them -- as contributors to their helplessness -- is Incompetence and Unworkability. I suggest that most 98%ers are stuck in Incompetence and Unworkability, and that these two elements contribute a great deal to their helplessness -- see Discover Where You Are. So, now the helplessness context consists of:

In interacting with 98%ers, I've observed a widespread inability to learn -- even "dyslearning" -- see Regression/Dyslearning Loop. Observing the inability to learn, prompted me to write #TL03C: How to Wake Up Your Desire to Learn, Grow & Succeed Obviously, if you can't learn, you remain Ignorant -- or become more Ignorant. An important aspect of Ignorance is the Reluctance to Ask Questions -- see Learn to Ask Better Questions. So, now the helplessness context grows to:

The Helplessness Imprints covered in Core Helplessness Mentality definitely form part of the helplessness context of most 98%ers. So, now the helplessness context gets extended to:

What I call the "First Big Inversion" is based on:
The book Addicted to Unhappiness by Drs. Pieper and Pieper;
Dr. Roger J. Callahan's discovery of "Psychological Reversal";
The "Beast Voice in the Brain" -- a "negative automatic inner voice" (also called "automatic thoughts") -- and called "Addictive Voice" or "Beast Voice" by Jack Trimpey of Rational Recovery®;
Considerable reading about Self-Sabotage.
The First Big Inversion manifests as people using their minds more to harm themselves than to help themselves (self-sabotage). Sometimes victims of the First Big Inversion seem to have "turned their understanding of cause and effect upside-down" -- they often take actions that produce results opposite to what would benefit them. Denial is most likely an important aspect of the First Big Inversion. The First Big Inversion is a most important part of the helplessness context:

What I call the "Second Big Inversion" is a process experienced by practically everyone at an early age. Before the Second Big Inversion, children primarily use their physical senses to perceive reality. After the Second Big Inversion, children primarily use "subjective social agreement" to "dysperceive" or distort reality in certain areas, particularly religion and politics. Learning a language and accepting all its words (as used by most people) as valid, is part of the Second Big Inversion. During this process, the ability to use the physical senses to perceive reality tends to be impaired, and severly damaged (for some people), particularly in the areas of religion and politics. An important aspect of the Second Big Inversion is that to its victims some of their symbols become more "real" to them than reality itself. Particularly in the areas of religion and politics, they find it difficult to distinguish between symbols in their heads and what exists in reality. Victims of the Second Big Inversion can be regareded as "slaves of subjective social agreement." Denial is an important aspect of the Second Big Inversion. An important consequence of the Second Big Inversion is a reduction of the ability to understand cause and effect. "The Second Big Inversion" contributes to the helplessness of certain people in some areas of their lives. It's part of the overall helplessness context:

If you understand cause and effect, you can identify what you want (effect). Then you can design an action or series of actions (cause) to produce the effect you want. Then you perform the action and produce the result. (In some cases, you may have to go through a trial-and-error learning process to discover the causes that will produce the effects you want.) 98%ers typically fail to produce the result they want of making money online. They don't take the actions that will produce the results they want. Or they take actions that produce the opposite effect -- losing money. A general characteristic of helplessness is a cognitive breakdown between cause and effect. In other words, the cognitive links between actions and results are dysfunctional. So, Not Understanding Cause and Effect forms a most important part of the helplessness context:

If you could think straight, how difficult would it be to take the actions that produce the results you want? The less capable you are of producing the results you want, the more helpless you are. (The more capable you are of producing the results you want, the more powerful you are.) If you think straight, you produce the results you want. Certain common fallacies have been identified. There are also some fallacies that are not very well known. Using these fallacies in your thinking, reduces your ability to produce the results you want -- they render you less powerful and more helpless. So Fallacious Thinking must be part of the helplessness context:

I watched a Seinfeld episode where Jerry makes a list of canned excuses, so when a "friend" he doesn't want to spend time with calls, Jerry can just use the next excuse on his list. Making excuses (or rationalizations to "explain") seems an obvious aspect of helplessness. When I was young I often did things my father didn't like -- he called them "naughty." In every such case, he would ask me, "Why did you do that?" This put me in a position of having to dream up a "reason" to give him. He wouldn't accept, "I don't know," because, "There must be a reason!" (He was trying to teach me about cause and effect. He explained to me that I must think about what I do before I do it, so I wouldn't get into trouble.)Typically, many people (particularly the most helpless) don't know why they do things much of the time. If they're subsequently asked, "Why?," they dream up an excuse or rationalization. (It's almost like a hypnotist hypnotizing someone, telling him to take off his shoe and put it on the mantlepiece, and then asking him why he did it.) Can you imagine someone replying, "I did it because I didn't understand cause and effect?" (Many people when asked why they didn't do something, will give excuses: "I was too busy," "I didn't have time," etc.) Most people must deny the condition I'm addressing here -- at first I couldn't even think of a good word for it. Eventually I came up with "Excusitis" -- I must have heard someone use the term, even if it's not in the dictionary. Excusitis is definitely part of the helplessness context:

There's another common condition I didn't find a good word for at first: The condition of people who give up easily. The "Swing Your Bat!" Principle and Raise Your "Quit Threshold" are attempts to address the condition. ("Nothing succeeds likes persistence!" However, if you persist on a wrong path, you may end up broke, in jail, or dead! There may be things that need to be given up.) Anyway, when looking for a good word for the condition of giving up too easily, and looking at "Excusitis," I thought: "Giveupitis!" To my surprise I found it in the dictionary. Note that laziness is different from Giveupitis. Although laziness may be part of the helplessness context of some people, laziness doesn't necessarily contribute to helplessness. In fact, because of laziness, some people could simply find more effective and efficient ways of doing things, making them more powerful. Some related words are "cowardice" (but there are many situations where "heroism" is likely to get you killed), "spineless," "weak-willed," "irresolute," "gutless," etc. But no word encapsulates the condition as well as Giveupitis. It's most definitely part of the helplessness context:

Addiction can be thought of as behaviors people choose -- if they have "free will" -- see Discover What You Can Control -- or as "diseases that need to be treated." If you think or feel you're addicted to anything, you may want to check out Rational Recovery's® "Addictive Voice Recognition Technique®" Crash Course. People who suffer from Addictions tend to be helpless, so Addiction must be added to the helplessness context:

Poor Health can render you less powerful and more helpless. See Health, Life-Extension & Biological/Physical Immortality. Overcoming the "apparent fate" of increasing helplessness that accompanies aging, declining health, and eventual death, requires an acceleration of the breakthroughs that will improve health and extend life. Death can be described as "absolute helplessness." So, I'm adding Poor Health, Aging, and Death to the helplessness context:

The central principle of Idenics is that people get stuck in "Fixed Identities." In the context of Idenics. an "identity" is a more or less fixed way of being and/or acting. If you see someone repeating the same unworkable behavior over and over again, they may be stuck (ar at certain times get stuck) in a Fixed Identity. Doesn't this look like addiction?

Repeatedly losing money over extended periods, as reported by CHM (right column) and PWS (right column), may indicate being stuck in a Fixed Identity that persistently engages in "losing behavior." Note that "identity" is at the level of context -- it's the bowl that shapes the soup. In the case of R.T. (right column), we find statements about the context (identity or identities) out of which he operates: "In all I've tried, I haven't made anything work. I'm not worth s_ _t for anything. I cannot... I still know nothing! I'm sad, depressed, obsessed, and fruitless...

It's very important to realize that for someone like R.T. to become successful, trying to change his "soup" is extremely unlikely to work. He has to change his "bowl." It's also important to realize that R.T. is unlikely to be able to become successful by using "affirmations" -- or even "afformations." Such methods are extremely unlikely to make any difference to his Fixed Identities... which form a most important part of the helplessness context:

If you suffer from any of the above conditions, you may be able to use them to make a list of "unwanted conditions" in your life, and apply Idenics to overcome all or most of them within a feww hours. See also Some Relatively Simple Solutions for Some?

You can also find more on helplessness at Coping.org under Helpless and Powerless.

To feel that we are worthwhile individuals, to know that we exist, we have to express our power -- feel that we are in control. This imperative to express our power and experience control is central to human behavior. Every human does something to express his or her power in the world. This power can be expressed creatively or destructively.

Humans first attempt to express their power creatively. If such attempts fail repeatedly, they experience themselves as powerless. They may feel helpless and hopeless, and become depressed. What they experience is that they cannot make a positive difference in their own lives or in the world. A cognitive breakdown occurs between their actions and the results they produce. Mentally and intellectually they cease to understand the connections between their behavior and the consequences of their behavior. Then they express their power destructively -- including self-sabotage.

This phenomenon is at the root of practically all individual and societal problems.

Understanding this phenomenon and its implications leads to the solution of practically all individual and societal problems.

Core-Helplessness Mentality (CHM)

My own experience, particularly interacting with people trying to make money online, indicates that around 98% enjoy little or no success. I've identified Core-Helplessness Mentality (CHM) as the most fundamental reason for this. It seems that many people are "helpless in their cores" in some important respects.

Most people are to some extent "lived by their early imprints." Many people suffer from "helplessness imprints" that pervade much of their lives. This is described by Dr. Arthur Janov in Primal Healing, particularly Chapter 4: "The Imprint: How It Runs Our Lives."

Helplessness imprints can be described by phrases like: "No one wants me"; "They never wanted me"; "What's the use of trying"; "I'm all alone"; "Nobody loves me"; "Trying to get love is useless"; "I don't want to work anymore"; "I've done enough"; "I am not going to do it"; "I don't get any help"; "Nothing I do is worth anything"; "There is something wrong with me"; "Nothing can save me"; "I'm not worth s_ _t for anything"; etc. However, these are shallow descriptions of the tips of icebergs. The imprints include feelings, emotions, and pain stored as deep memories in the "whole human system."

Deep imprints, including those related to helplessness, impact the whole human system: mind, brain, and body.

Chapter 10 of Janov's Primal Healing is titled "Why We Have to Relive in Order to Get Well." You can't just talk or think yourself out of the effects of imprints; to cure yourself you have to relive them.

From my own perusal of "success and self-improvement books," "self-improvement seminars and workshops," "meditation, think-and-grow-rich, think-right-now, law-of-attraction, motivational-speaking, personal-coaching, permission-to-succeed, deep-breathing, sensory-deprivation, trauma-clearing, psychotherapy, and brain-entrainment practices," etc., I've concluded that everything I've gotten involved with or come across so far contributes very little, if anything, to the greater success of 98%ers. The main reason, I contend, is that they don't address Core-Helplessness sufficiently.

So the sad situation is that practically nobody provides the means for the 98%ers to improve and become significantly more successful. A revealing book that supports this contention is SHAM: How the Self-Help Movement Made America Helpless by Steve Salerno. Salerno suggests that much of the "Self-Help and Actualization Movement" (SHAM) tends to make people worse.

Maybe, in the absence of tackling and overcoming Core-Helplessness, 98%ers are impervious to self-improvement and becoming significantly more successful. Maybe the "Self-Help and Actualization Movement" (SHAM) is so big and profitable, enabling some of its "top gurus" to rake in millions, because practically nothing works for the 98%ers. So the demand remains huge and insatiable.

It may be similar to the "gurus" selling information online on how to make millions online. Some "gurus" make millions selling their "secrets." But practically nothing works for the 98%ers. So the demand remains huge and insatiable.

Nevertheless, there may be at least a little hope for 98%ers. Martin E. P. Seligman, Ph.D. author of What You Can Change and What You Can't writes: "Traditionally, most people in the West have believed that human character is fixed and unalterable, that people do not and cannot improve, advance, or perfect themselves. The change from a deep belief in the unchangeability of chracter to an equally deep belief in the capacity to improve is recent, and it represents one of the most fundamental and important revolutions in modern thought... The Maximal Self believes that it can change and improve, and this very belief allows change and improvement. The dogma of human plasticity tends to fulfill itself."

Chapter 11 of Primal Healing is titled "Toward a Therapy of Feeling: One Cure for Many Diseases." Janov provides the following "key phenomen in the development of emotional efflictions":

What's needed is a team of people with the appropriate expertise to study Primal Healing by Dr. Arthur Janov. They should probably also study Addicted to Unhappiness: Free yourself from moods and behaviors that undermine relationships, work, and the life you want by Martha Heineman Pieper, PhD and William J. Pieper, MD -- see Addicted to Unhappiness -- as well as Reclaiming Your Life: A Step-by-Step Guide to Using Regression Therapy to Overcome the Effects of Childhood Abuse by Jean Jenson, M.S.W.

In my opinion, what's needed is a methodology much faster than Primal Therapy. Janov writes: "As a result of four separate brainwave studies we discovered a brain system with better balanced right and left hemispheres after one year of Primal Therapy." That's much too slow. With Idenics it typically takes a few hours to handle all your "Unwanted Conditions!"

EFT may also be relevant. EFT consists of a number of related techniques that can be learned within minutes -- "Emotional Freedom Techniques." It may be possible to use EFT to handle Janov's "deep imprinys." You can download a free EFT Manual from the Emotional Freedom Techniques website.

After having studied the indicated materials, the next step for the team members would be to formulate a tentative methodology, incorporating Janov's "principles of a proper therapy":

The next step for the team members would be to test the new methodology on themselves and refine it. It's vital that the team members heal themselves to whatever extent necessary.

"Avoid destructive thinking. Improper negative thoughts sink people. A ship can sail around the world many, many times, but just let enough water get into the ship and it will sink. Just so with the human mind. Let enough negative thoughts or improper thoughts get into the human mind and the person sinks just like a ship." -- Alfred A. Montapert

Negativity

Many people, before they can make any significant progess in their lives, need to handle the issue of negativity. I don't know to what percentage of the population this applies, but the percentage may be very high: perhaps 70-80%! It's also very likely that many people are subject to "downspirals." As a reaction to "bad" experiences they make false conclusions and become more negative. This tends to render them less happy, competent, and capable over time. (As a possible illustration of this "downspiral," Dr. Phil McGraw reported on his TV show (early August, 2004) that in America about 50% of first marriages end in divorce, over 60% of second marriages end in divorce, and over 85% of third marriages end in divorce! This could be an important example of "dyslearning.")

If negativity is an "unwanted condition" in your life, Idenics may be the quickest and most effective way to overcome it. See also:

In the survey conducted by this website, of 203 Americans aged 18-66, participants chose from a list of more than 50 potentially counterproductive behaviors. The Top 20 Self-Sabotaging Behaviors, with the percentage of participants who said they had done that behavior more than once in the preceding 30 days: #1- Procrastinated - 86%.

How to Beat Procrastination

According to Mike Brescia of Think Right Now!, there are four main reasons for all procrastination (I've added #5, #6, #7, and #8):

Mike Brescia says: "...[T]he victim mentality in all its forms almost always completely prevents people from taking the actions they could and should take in order to achieve what they could and should."

Perfectionists sometimes don't do things because they fear that they won't do them perfectly. They may also think that by not taking a necessary action they won't fail at it.

Mike Brescia says: "We humans are pleasure seeking beings at our core, so it makes sense that, given the choice, we would do things that we enjoy doing as opposed to doing something that we are not that interested in." It takes discipline to do the "un-fun" things you need to do in order to switch from a path where success is impossible to a path that makes success possible.

In an email titled "Self-Image of a Doer," Mike Brescia wrote that it may be CRITICAL that you change your self-image. You need to have the self-image of a person who is successful, the self-image of a person who takes the right actions consistently and who loves taking these actions. "You need to tell yourself CONSTANTLY that you are a doer and a winner in your chosen area of growth."

When looking over the Success Steps on this page, it may seem that there are so many things to do that the overall task is overwhelming. Mike Brescia of Think Right Now! indicates that there's a common human thinking pattern of perceiving tasks as more burdensome than they really are ("blowing up the size of tasks in our minds"). He says: "This automatic, unconscious mental habit of inflating the size and thus the difficulty assessment of our tasks/duties creates... Overwhelm." One way to handle this is by applying The Small-Step Progression Principle.

Overcome "Success Anorexia"

In 1998, I bought a groundbreaking book by Noah St. John of the The Success Clinic, called Permission to Succeed: Stop Starving Yourself Of The Success You Deserve. Noah starts by recounting how he got "permission" from his father to become much more successful than his father had been. By doing this, Noah in effect gave himself permission to succeed.

Noah quotes William James: "One thing is clear: when we talk about human beings, we can see that they are not driven by logic or reason. Ultimately, human beings are driven by their emotions -- by their passional nature."

Noah had some major realizations about how he had been starving himself of success ("success anorexia"), and how this mechanism was related to food-related anorexia, after listening to talk by Peggy Claude-Pierre, author of The Secret Language of Eating Disorders: The Revolutionary Approach to Understanding and Curing Anorexia and Bulimia. Peggy is also the founder of the famous Montreux Clinic where eating disorders are treated.

Peggy makes a crucial distinction between the "Negative Mind" and the "Actual Mind." This distinction is very close the distinction the Trimpeys of Rational Recovery make between the "Beast" and the "Real You."

You can think of success as something you "eat." The chances are overwhelming that for practically all the readers of this page, the "food they need to eat" in order to become much more successful is available to them in abundance! You just "eat the food of success" and then you succeed!

And how do you "eat the food of success?" Well, it's like putting one piece of good food into your mouth, chewing it, and then swallowing it. Then you take the next piece of good food, and continue the process until you've eaten enough! You can start at the top of this page!

Noah St. John has also made a great contribution to success methodology with his discovery of "afformations." Afformations are much more powerful than affirmations. An "afformation" is basically a question that engages your brain in a positive way. Afformations are self-empowering questions. Examples: "How am I going to make this work best for me?"; "Why am such a big success?"; "What's the best question to ask myself right now?"; etc. As Noah says, "The bottom line is that questions asked of the mind [afformations] are far more powerful than statements that are tacked onto the mind [affirmations]." You can find out more about afformations at The Success Clinic and at Afformations.com.