Edited and compiled by Frederick Mann with important contributions by Mark Lindsay
© Copyright 2002 Build Freedom Holdings ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
Version #1 - May, 2002
Before proceeding with this Report, I recommend reading:
My general approach in this report is to provide you with all the "success levers" I know of. There are some very powerful needles in the haystack of success principles and techniques. It's up to you to identify exactly which you need to start implementing in your life.
Some of the success elements I describe are pitched at what I call the "context level." Others are pitched at the "content level." Most "success books" are pitched at the "how-to" or content level. In general, they won't help you very much unless you make changes at your context level. "Give me a lever long enough and a place to stand and I shall move the earth." Archimedes' "place to stand" can be regarded as context, compared to his "lever long enough" as content.
Below, I list my success elements. The most important elements are those that address context rather than content. If you don't make the necessary changes at the context level, it will be as if you have no place to stand, and the other elements may be of little or no use. (For more detailed explanations, see: The Core-Power Context and The Helplessness Context.)
If the overall task of all you need to do to gain the necessary advantages to reach the level of success you desire seems overwhelming, you have my sympathy! One of your objectives can be to identify where you want to start. Then apply The Small-Step Progression Principle.
Here's to the success you deserve and are willing to work for! Massive success is available to you!
[Note: [@] = deduplicated, now links to a different article with an improved version of what was here.]
#1. [@] Wake Up Your Powerful Real Self!
#2. [@] Make Great Decisions!
#3. [@] Identify Your Strengths (Biggest Advantages) and Build On Them
#4. [@] Recognize and Acknowledge Your Weaknesses (Most Serious Disadvantages), Overcome Them, and Replace Them With Advantages!
#5. [@] Live your life out of the question: How Can I Gain Advantages, Increase Those Advantages, and Exploit Them to The Fullest -- While Benefiting Others?
#6. Self-Discovery Skills/Learning Power
#7. [@] Breakthrough Questions
#8. [@] Secondary Questions
#9. Identify Your Natural Life Energy
#10. [@] Core Knowledge/Fundamental Principles
#11. Become the Creative Force of Your Life
#12. Success Context and Attitudes
#13. Be willing to Do Everything Necessary to Succeed
#14. [@] Distinguish between What You Can and Can't Control
#15. Quality of Choices/Doing Things Right
#16. Discover and Wake Up Your Conquering Force
#17. Are You a Hunter-Warrior or a Farmer?
#18. Have You Been Living as an Owner or a Victim?
#19. Adversity Quotient - Quitters, Campers & Climbers
#20. Empower Your Survival Personality
#21. Mastering Expectations
#22. Psychological Failure Scripts and Psychic Masochism
#23. The Phenomenon of Denial
#24. The Quantum Success Jump
#25. [@] Flexible Goals and Objectives
#26. Focus
#27. Escape from the Jailhouse of Failure
#28. Say Goodbye to Dead-End White-Collar Sweatshops
#29. Overconfidence
#30. Profit from the Psychology of Losing
#31. Increase Your Intelligence/Develop Your Thinking Skills
#32. Strategic Thinking and Game Theory
#33. Handling Uncertainty
#34. Reverse Engineering
#35. Discipline, Thought, then Control
#36. Extropian Principles
#37. Technology
#38. Scientific Method
#39. Handling Critical Variables, TOC (Theory of Constraints), and TRIZ (Theory of Inventive Problem Solving)
#40. Personal Freedom and Mobility
#41. Personal Power
#42. Reality-Based Action/Find out What Works
#43. Preponderance of Means over Ends
#44. Solutions vs. Nonsolutions
#45. Persistence and Massive Action
#46. Maturity
#47. Responsibility
#48. Health
#49. Emotional Control
#50. Information Skills
#51. Money Skills
#52. Marketing Skills
#53. Management Skills and "Hatting"
#54. Street Smarts/Beat the System
#55. Become an Expert
#56. Create a Good Reputation
#57. Become Unstoppable
#58. Tools and Resources
#59. Find a Good Horse to Ride
#60. Effective Use of Time
#61. Security
#62. Formulas
#63. Systems
#64. Prediction
#65. Coaching
#66. Study Human Nature
#67. Martian Analysis
#68. Take Charge of Your Meanings
#69. Understand B.S.
#70. Understand the Nature of Government
#71. The Anatomy of Failure
#72. Anything I May Have Missed!
#1. Wake Up Your Powerful Real Self!
#3. Identify Your Strengths (Biggest Advantages) and Build On Them
#6. Self-Discovery Skills/Learning Power
"The main message is that self-discovery and problem-solving skills are more valuable for learning than someone else's "how to" list... Using a "how to list" is looking outside ourselves for answers, where self-discovery looks inward where long-term learning is born." -- Michael Hebron ('Golf Swing Secrets... and Lies')
This is one of the single most important success elements.
"For over 20 years, I was an avid reader of so-called "how-to" books, especially the kind that describe how to become rich and successful. I devoured every word and did everything those books suggested. I followed the formulas. I trained myself to think positively. I set goals. I fed my subconscious mind with suggestions for wealth and success. Yet I found that after twenty years of reading millions of words, after twenty years of trying what those well-meaning books instructed, I was not measurably closer to being either rich or successful than I was when I picked up my first how-to book." -- Mike Hernacki ('The Ultimate Secret to Getting Absolutely Everything You Want')
Many people have difficulty learning from certain "how-to" information.
Do you know why?
Well, people are different and each individual has his or her own unique situation and circumstances. One person's "how-to" instructions may not work for another person. We also have unique talents and strengths. What works for me may not work for you because of these differences.
Another important factor is that for "how-to" information to become useful to you, you may first have to "make it your own." You may want to reflect on it, integrate it, and generate your own insights about it. You may want to use it for self-discovery. Do I have the talents and strengths to utilize this information? Do I have to adapt it to cater for my unique talents and strengths? What do I have to do to make this work for me?
Note that your Self 1 may be constantly telling you what to do and what not to do. This may interfere with your ability to utilize "how-to" information.
Maybe, in order to make certain "how-to" information work, you first need some "street-smarts," or "marketing-smarts," or "money-smarts," etc.
Maybe there are some people who learn well from "how-to" information. What sets them apart from those who can read all the "how-to" marketing information in the world... and never learn to market on the Internet?
Maybe they have superior LEARNING POWER.
Anyone with sufficient learning power can read the materials on BigBooster, implement what they find relevant to their talents, strengths, situation, and interests, and within maybe 6-24 months earn enough to live on.
"Now, in only two months, with only $3,000 invested, I have created $1,000 per month cash flow. With more learning and a little more time, I will be financially independent." -- RM
But how do you develop your learning power?
While reading, you may want to ask questions like:
Asking such questions will develop your SELF-DISCOVERY SKILLS and your LEARNING POWER!
"After years of searching, I finally found the answer -- interestingly enough, within my own self." -- Mike Hernacki ('The Ultimate Secret to Getting Absolutely Everything You Want')
I also recommend these books:
A while back, I received the following email (edited):
After more than two years of searching, studying, researching, and promoting a variety of programs on the Net I have to admit I haven't had much success. I have even invested thousands of dollars that have not produced "good" results.
I tell you this not to gain your sympathy, but to just let you know that I appear to have a very steep learning curve. Despite this I am very stubborn and determined to succeed.
In the last couple of weeks I have begun to really read through your sites and have discovered some great information and resources. Thank you!
I know that promoting is the key. No, good promotions to the right people is the key.
The reason I am writing to you today, other than to introduce myself, is to ask for your advice on how and where to get prospects looking for Program X and SuccessArsenal? Even using BB7M, I still have to generate traffic to that site. This is the area in which I have failed despite buying lists, joining safelists, and spending hundreds of hours promoting on free sites...
BC
Persistence is one of the secrets of success! However, persisting with things that don't work, won't get you anywhere. Most likely, all the information BC has so far studied on Internet marketing is pitched at the "how-to" level. And he has not found ways to make it work for him.
Seeing that his success depends on marketing, I suggest he ask himself:
#9. Identify Your Natural Life Energy
While doing research for this report, I found a very important book: 'Gary Null's Guide to a Joyful, Healthy Life.' It's actually three books in one:
"Consider the thousands upon thousands of people -- you may be one of them -- who conscientiously pursue self-improvement. They go on a weekend retreat, attending the words of a charismatic teacher, seeking psychic peace and mental happiness. With renewed spirit and new resolve, they return home to their everyday lives. And too soon their fresh perspective and vigorous resolution dissolve in the face of old problems. They can't effectively adopt and implement new constructs for being because they are still trapped in their old ones. A weekend of self-examination and self-exploration cannot undo a lifetime of conditioning." -- Gary Null"Here I had dedicated my entire working life to helping people change their lives for the better, and my brother could see the terrible truth that I had failed to consciously grasp: I wasn't making a difference -- not even for those who personally attended those weekly sessions [of a radio show]. It was shocking. How could I have misssed it? ...It just didn't make sense. I knew that they were intelligent. So why had they failed to take all the information they had received and apply it to making positive changes in their lives? What is there about people that keeps them from acting in their own best interests -- even when they show up week after week to learn what to do? There didn't seem to be an answer." -- Gary Null
Null distinguishes seven "natural life energy types":
"...[H]ere's my own personal notion of success. It consists of three parts:
1. Knowing who you really are;
2. Spending each day doing what you really should be doing, based upon your knowledge of who you are; and
3. Doing so with joy and love in your heart, so that those you come in contact with feel the effects of your fulfillment." -- Gary Null
'Be Kind to Yourself' and 'Choosing Joy' contain many "self-questions" worth exploring.
Key question: How does the nature of your unique natural life energy influence the course you select toward achieving success?
See also Money Skill #4: Understand life energy.
#10. Core Knowledge/Fundamental Principles
#11. Become the Creative Force of Your Life
One of the single most empowering books I've ever read is 'The Path of Least Resistance' by Robert Fritz -- and I've read thousands of books. Fritz makes a distinction between the "reactive-responsive orientation" and the "creative orientation." We could also call them the "reactive-responsive context" and the "creative context."
Note that the word "context" is used in a different sense here compared to the "talent of context" of the Buckingham-Clifton model.
The reactive-responsive context is essentially a passive orientation toward life characterized by the belief that you are basically a victim of circumstances or fate. If you live out of this context, you tend to get so used to things happening to you that you forget that you can control your own life. You are like a weak reed blown every which way by the wind.
Self 1 could be regarded as the "architect" of the reactive-responsive context.
The creative context is an active orientation toward life characterized by the belief that you are basically in control. To a considerable extent, you can make choices independent of the circumstances of your life. You are like a powerful bamboo with a will of its own. You can lean over in the direction of even a strong wind.
Self 2 could be regarded as the "architect" of the creative context.
See also my article "The Path of Least Resistance."
One of the reasons "how-to" books don't work very well for most people is that practically all of them are written at the "reactive-responsive level." Very few are written at the "creative level." Rather than providing you with the means (guidance, stimulation, and inspiration) to make a breakout shift in your fundamental orientation to life, they provide you with lots of low-level details to respond or react to.
#12. Success Context and Attitudes
In my opinion, all the dictionary definitions of success that I've seen are unsatisfactory. I have a little ebook "Real 'Secrets' of Success" by Dale Armin Miller of
Success Arsenal!
in which he indicates that success is a state of mind or attitude. (He also points out that, "in a recent year in the United States, 87 millionaires committed suicide!")
If you think that you first have to accomplish things in order to become successful, you have it backwards! You create a "context of success" and then live out of that context. Most of the first 25 elements are central to such a Success Context. You first become a success in your mind. The actions and results then follow from the Success Context.
Key question: Why are most of the first 25 elements central to creating a Success Context?
Note how Dr. Foster assists you in creating a Success Context:
"Whatever you're trying to decide, you have everything you need inside you right now to be one of those people who easily, quickly, and comfortably make great decisions." -- Charles Foster, Ph.D., M.B.A. ('What Do I Do Now? Dr. Foster's 30 Laws of Great Decision Making')"Early in my new writing career, I resolved to make a success of it." -- Mike Hernacki ('The Ultimate Secret to Getting Absolutely Everything You Want')
The above decision is an example of creating a Success Context.
Another way to see this is to look at "be," "do, and "have." Many people think in terms of:
Several philosophers have indicated that the above is a "backwards context." It's much more powerful and creative to think in terms of:
"We are free not because we claim freedom, but because we practice it." -- William Faulkner"Freedom means self-control; no more, no less." -- Rose Wilder Lane
The "Freedom Context" version would look something like this:
We can make a distinction between context and content. Mr. Hernacki's "Early in my new writing career, I resolved to make a success of it" is at the level of Context. If he were to provide a list of all the things he did to become a successful writer, the list would be at the level of Content. Practically all "how-to" information is at the level of Content.
If you're operating out of an unworkable Context (such as "It's very difficult to succeed as a writer, Internet marketer, etc."), then it's unlikely that any Content you study will make a significant difference to your level of success. Though it's always possible that some "how-to" Content will trigger you to make a breakout shift in Context.
Robert Fritz's Creative Orientation is at the level of Context. His Reactive-Responsive Orientation is at the level of Content.
Your Attitudes are at the level of Context. One of the most important Attitudes is Commitment.
"Until one is committed, there is hesitancy, the chance to draw back, always ineffectiveness. Concerning all acts of initiative (and creation) there is one elementary truth the ignorance of which kills countless ideas and splendid plans: that moment one definitely commits oneself, then Providence moves too.All sorts of things occur to help one that would never otherwise have occurred. A whole stream of events issues from the decision, raising in one's favor all manner of unforseen incidents and meetings and material assistance, which no man could have dreamed would come his way." -- Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Another most important attitude is to have an Open and Receprive Mind as exemplified by Leonardo da Vinci.
See:
#13. Be willing to Do Everything Necessary to Succeed
"In order to accomplish something, you must be willing to do whatever it takes to accomplish it." -- Mike Hernacki ('The Ultimate Secret to Getting Absolutely Everything You Want')
Hernacki's "Ultimate Secret" creates a Context for Success. The key is being "willing to do whatever it takes." I highly recommend his book.
While I recommend his book, I also need to point out what I consider his errors (quotes from The Ultimate Secret to Getting Absolutely Everything You Want'; 2001 paperback edition):
* P3: "To get absolutely everything you want, you don't have to study anything, meet anyone, go anywhere or do anything in particular." If this were true, it would not be necessary to read the rest of his book! You could stop right there and automatically get "absolutely everything you want!"
* P28: "...I realized that the method of doing something, the how-to of it, doesn't matter." It would be more appropriate to say that something else (creating a Success Context) is much more important and that the method (how-to) is less important.
"The most valuable insights are arrived at last; but the most valuable insights are methods." -- Friedrich Nietzsche ('The Will to Power')
* P37: "The truth is, when it comes to getting results, intention is more important than action." There are many results which require not only action but Massive Action for success. Anyone can have the intention to succeed. In many cases, that intention is worthless, if not followed by action. Hernacki uses the fallacious argument that because you can be happy by simply having the intention to be happy without doing anything, therefore this is a general principle applying to other desired results as well.
* P47: "You must recognize that you alone are the source of all the conditions and situations in your life." It would be more accurate to replace "all" with "most of." See 14. Distinguish between What You Can and Can't Control.
"All successful men have agreed in being causationists." -- Ralph Waldo Emerson.
While many people underestimate what they are the source of (also the cause of or responsible for) in their lives. It's an error to believe that you're the source of everything. There are things you can control and things you can't.
In Fritz's Creative Orientation you operate at cause. In his Responsive-Reactive Orientation you operate at effect.
* P56: "All that matters is what goes on in your head." It would be more accurate to say that what goes on in your head matters a great deal. The "Inner Game" is often more important than than the "Outer Game."
* P57: "...The Ultimate Secret does not demand that you actually do anything." To think that you can achieve most results without doing anything, or anything in particular, is absurd "magical thinking." Most desired results require action for their achievement; some require Massive Action.
* P67: "While it would be good to get help from other people, you don't need it. And while it would be good to have a plan of action, you don't need that either." There are many results you absolutely cannot achieve without help from others. Some people -- depending on their talents and strengths, and the complexity of what they want to achieve -- absolutely need a plan of action.
* P90: "...[W]henever you think something, the thought immediately attracts its physical equivalent." "New-age magical thinking" or "infantile megalomania!" Read what Gallwey says about "positive thinking" in 'The Inner Game of Tennis.'
* P91: "In objective reality, the thought of winning attracts the physical counterpart of winning." That's why it's so easy to win in Las Vegas! More "magical thinking" or "infantile megalomania!" (Self 1 can be very devious in providing you with unreal expectations!)
* P93: "When you think of having ten million dollars, that money immediately begins making its way toward you." Much of what Hernacki says about "thoughts as physical things" and their supposed "magical powers" is nonsense, in my opinion.
Nevertheless, his "ultimate secret" is valid, and profound, and part of the Core Knowledge of Success:
"In order to accomplish something, you must be willing to do whatever it takes to accomplish it."
#14. Distinguish between What You Can and Can't Control
#15. Quality of Choices/Doing Things Right
Certain elements are absolutely necessary for success. If you don't gain advantages, no matter what else you do, you're likely to fail. If you operate out of a "failure context," "negative context," or "backwards context," no matter what you do, you're likely to fail. In the ebook "Real 'Secrets' of Success," Dale Armin Miller of
Success Arsenal! emphasizes the importance of doing things right. He indicates that his successful Affiliates take care to write emails that contain all the necessary details and are designed to work and produce desired results; while his Affiliates who fail typically send him careless and dumb emails. My own experience indicates that 10-15% of the people I have contact with seem to have little or no concept of doing things right; no concept of designing actions to produce the results they want. People who don't know about doing things right also tend to have problems with completing online forms for joining programs, making online payments, etc. They may also have difficulty reading and following instructions.
For many people, the road to success starts with this element. They need to learn to do simple things right. If you can't do things right, no matter what else you do, you're likely to fail. Make Doing Things Right part of your Success Context!
For more on Quality, see #TL15: How to Achieve Ultimate Success.
#16. Discover and Wake Up Your Conquering Force
"I found a book that gave the possible mental origins of various physical problems. Turning to the section on lung diseases, I read: "Maladies of the lungs and difficulty in breathing are a sign of unfulfilled passions, unrealized dreams."Naturally, I asked myself if I did indeed have any unfulfilled passions, or dreams that as yet were unrealized... aha!
At that moment, my entire problem -- and its solution -- immediately became clear to me. I was sick in my lungs because all of my adult life, my secret ambition had been to become a professional writer. Yet, for many reasons, I had never allowed myself to pursue that ambition." -- Mike Hernacki ('The Ultimate Secret to Getting Absolutely Everything You Want')
Before becoming a professional writer, Hernacki didn't succeed as a teacher, advertising man, lawyer, and stockbroker. But when he discovered what he was really passionate about, he suddenly started succeeding.
This suggests that the real secret of Hernacki's success might have been his discovery of what he was really passionate about. What he calls his "ultimate secret" may have been a secondary factor. Had he applied his "ultimate secret" in his earlier professions, it may not have helped him succeed at all!
So I'm suggesting that discovering what you're really passionate about may be more important for some people than Hernacki's "ultimate secret." This may also fit into the pattern of most authors of success books not being very good at identifying all the most important reasons for their own success!
When you discover what you're really passionate about, it unleashes a Conquering Force in you. That's what happened to Hernacki. With his unleashed Conquering Force he quickly cleared up his lung problem and became a successful writer.
#17. Are You a Hunter-Warrior or a Farmer?
In his excellent book 'Attention Deficit Disorder: A Different Perception,' Thom Hartmann makes a distinction between "hunters" and "farmers."
Hunters have these characteristics:
"* They constantly monitor their environment...
* They can totally throw themselves into the hunt; time is elastic...
* They're flexible, capable of changing strategy on a moment's notice...
* They can throw an incredible burst of energy into the hunt...
* They think visually...
* They love the hunt, but are easily bored by mundane tasks...
* They'll face danger that "normal" individuals would avoid...
* They're hard on themselves and those around them."
People who are considered to have "ADD" are the descendants of hunters.
Farmers have these characteristics:
"* Isn't easily distracted by his or her environment...
* Farmers sustain a slow-and-steady effort...
* Farmers see the long-range picture...
* Farmers are not easily bored...
* Farmers are team players...
* Farmers attend to the details...
* Farmers are cautious...
* Farmers are patient with others."
We basically live in a world organized by farmers for farmers. Some hunters find it difficult to utilize their natural hunter talents to best advantage in a world of farmers.
Whether you're a hunter or a farmer (or have some mix of their characteristics) has important implications for the strategies and tactics you want to develop in order to succeed.
Attempting to suppress hunter characteristics with drugs may not be the best strategy! See:
The following books may be of interest to hunters (and even some farmers interested in learning how to "hunt" for success!):
#18. Have You Been Living as an Owner or a Victim?
"Most of us today live in cocoons.
...We could tear open the cocoon if we wanted to. We could push out and see the light of the world. We could learn to fly. The cocoon is known by the name of personality.Most people live trapped inside their personalities for their entire lives, never knowing that they can leave. They are victims of their own invented "selves."
...As you look back on your life so far, you will see that you have two basic ways of being. At any given time, you were either one way, or you were the other; you were either an owner of the human spirit, or you were a victim of circumstances. One way (owner) reinvents you as you go. It reinvents you outward, in an ever-expanding circle of capability, skills, and personal power. The other way (victim) shrinks you down. Just as your muscles shrink when they are not moving, so do you." -- Steve Chandler ('Reinventing Yourself: How to Become the Person You've Always Wanted to Be.')
Living as an Owner or a Victim is an orientation at the level of Context. If you live as an Owner, you're basically a winner and the Owner Orientation pervades all or most of your life. If you live as a Victim, you're basically a loser and the Victim Orientation pervades all or most of your life. It's possible to live as an Owner in some respects and as a Victim in others.
In order to experience success, it's necessary to live as an Owner. Making the contextual shift from Victim to Owner may require massive effort.
"The biggest lie humankind has told itself in the past 50 years is that happiness is available without effort. That effort is painful. That effort is not valuable, and indeed, is to be avoided whenever possible. That a retirement of ease and comfort is something "you owe yourself" and that only a thoughtless fool exerts any real energy in the course of a given day." -- Steve Chandler ('Reinventing Yourself: How to Become the Person You've Always Wanted to Be.')
Owners use different language compared to Victims -- see Chapter 25 of 'Reinventing Yourself: How to Become the Person You've Always Wanted to Be' by Steve Chandler.
"I was a true lowlife...
...[T]he lower you are now, the more fun you are going to have if you take reinvention as a personal project... You can redesign yourself completely. And not because there's necessarily anything wrong with you, but just for the sheer joy of reinvention. There is no joy like it.The way I got started back to the spirit was this: I began to allow myself to think.
It sounds almost too simple, but I found that true victims don't do it. They don't think. They brood and ruminate and worry. And then they feel depressed. And then they feel angry. And the deadly beat goes on. It circles back on itself. As a woman in a workshop once told me, self-pity is like a snake that gets in your brain and lays its eggs there." -- Steve Chandler ('Reinventing Yourself: How to Become the Person You've Always Wanted to Be.')
There may be a great deal in this report and its links for you to think about.
#19. Adversity Quotient - Quitters, Campers & Climbers
Success can be defined as the degree to which one moves forward and upward, progressing in one's lifelong mission, despite all obstacles or other forms of adversity." -- Paul G. Stoltz, PhD ('Adversity Quotient: Turning Obstacles into Opportunities')
AQ = Adversity Quotient and
"takes three forms. First, AQ is a new conceptual framework for understanding and enhancing all facets of success. It builds upon a substantial base of landmark research, offering a practical, new combination of of knowledge that redefines what it takes to succeed...Second, AQ is a measure of how you respond to adversity. Unchecked, these subconscious patterns are your for life. Now, for the first time, they can be measured, understood, and changed...
Finally, AQ is a scientifically-grounded set of tools for improving how you respond to adversity, and, as a result, your overall personal and professional effectiveness." -- Paul G. Stoltz, PhD ('Adversity Quotient: Turning Obstacles into Opportunities')
Stoltz distinguishes between "Quitters," "Campers," and "Climbers." Humans have a core value or drive to "Ascend" -- what Abraham Maslow called the drive to "self-actualization."
Self-actualizing is a life-long climb or Ascent up a high mountain, requiring conscious and deliberate effort. Quitters give up at the foot of the mountain. Campers go some way up the mountain, until they reach a plateau where they quit and sit out their remaining years. Climbers are dedicated to a lifelong journey of Ascent.
I strongly recommend 'Adversity Quotient: Turning Obstacles into Opportunities' by Paul G. Stoltz, PhD.
#20. Empower Your Survival Personality
"True self-improvement, self-confidence, and spiritual development come out of real-life, everyday experiences, not from books or workshops. Thus my approach is to provide guidelines on how to learn your own surviving, coping, and thriving skills. This is a book of useful questions and practical guidelines, it is not a book of instructions. Think of it as a manual on how to discover inborn abilities that no other human can reveal to you." -- Al Siebert, Ph.D. ('The Survivor Personality: Why Some People Are Stronger, Smarter, and More Skillful at Handling Life's Difficulties... and How You Can Be, Too')
Siebert's book 'The Survival Personality' contains a wealth of survival advantages and disadvantages.
"...[W]hen I was a graduate student in clinical psychology, I discovered that psychologists and psychiatrists did not seem to know about people who hold up well under pressure. After graduation I started a personal research project to understand life's best survivors. To focus my efforts, I developed a list of criteria. People with survivor personalities are those who:
- have survived a major crisis or challenge;
- surmounted the crisis through personal effort;
- emerged from the experience with previously unknown strengths and abilities; and
- afterwards find value in the experience.
Using these four criteria as a frame of reference, I listed questions I wanted to answer:
- How do some survivors of horrible experiences manage to be so happy?
- Is there a basic pattern of personality traits that survivors share? If so, what are the traits?
- What about their uniqueness? How can a person be similar to others and yet be a unique individual?
- Is the survivor personality inborn? Is it learned?
- If it is learned, why do so many people grow up without learning it?
- What percentage of people have survivor personalities?
- What are survivors like when they aren't surviving? Is there a way to spot such people when things are peaceful?" -- Al Siebert, Ph.D. ('The Survivor Personality: Why Some People Are Stronger, Smarter, and More Skillful at Handling Life's Difficulties... and How You Can Be, Too')
Visit THRIVENet and Survivor Guidelines.org.
#21. Mastering Expectations
What do you expect? Why do you expect? Are you an "effective expecter?" Or an "ineffective expecter?" Can you gain advantages by becoming a "better expecter?"
What about "unreal" or "unrealistic" expectations?
To what extent do expectations become self-fulfilling prophecies?
In general, do you expect to fail or to succeed?
How do you feel when what happens fails to live up to your expectations? What does your Self 1 usually say about this?
How do you feel when what happens exceeds your expectations? What does your Self 1 usually say about this?
Might it be better to live your life without any expectations whatsoever? Without expectations, would you be able to eliminate all disappointment from your life?
Are you ambitious?
If you were diagnosed as "HIV-positive," would your expectations turn the diagnosis into a psychological death sentence? See Rethinking AIDS & The HIV Hypothesis. What role would your Self 1 play? What would your Self 2 do?
What is the difference between purpose, goal, hope, and expectation?
Chapter 9 of 'The Inner Game of Golf' by W. Timothy Gallwey has some profound information on expectations.
#22. Psychological Failure Scripts and Psychic Masochism
This is another element that may be absolutely necessary for success, i.e., recognizing and overcoming any Psychological Failure Scripts and/or Psychic Masochism you may suffer from. Of course, you personally may not be the victim of any unconscious Psychological Failure Scripts or Psychic Masochism -- in which case, you can safely ignore this element. However, beware of the possibility of denying Psychological Failure Scripts and Psychic Masochism that stand between you and your success. Beware of Overconfidence, if you think you don't have to do anything about this element.
The most effective and quickest way I know of to overcome Psychological Failure Scripts and Psychic Masochism is Idenics (see above). See also:
Psychological Failure Scripts and Psychic Masochism "operate" at the level of Context. That means, if present, they permeate major aspects of your life. If they are not handled, anyone suffering from them is unlikely to enjoy much success.
The concept Psychic Masochism was formulated by [from http://www.questforself.com/health_greatsecret.html]
"...the brilliant psychoanalyst Edmund Bergler M.D. Bergler gave us a comprehensive framework for understanding our emotions and for learning to regulate them. He wrote twenty-two psychology books and 273 published articles, and a 400-word obituary was written about him in The New York Times when he died in 1962. (Many of his titles are in print and available from International Universities Press in Madison, CT.)Bergler, an Austrian Jew who fled the Nazis in 1938, challenged the notion that we are simply the product of what is done to us in childhood. He said that, as children, we form subjective interpretations separate from the reality of what is happening. These subjective interpretations, interwoven with the reality of how we were treated and conditioned, grow into fixed negative messages and expectations about ourselves, others, and the world.
Bergler determined that humankind suffers from a condition he called psychic masochism. This term refers to an unconscious willingness we all have as adults to experience or indulge in unresolved childhood emotions such as feeling deprived, refused, controlled, criticized, disappointed, rejected, betrayed, and so on. This condition of psychic masochism, through which we maintain and reinforce our negative beliefs and emotions, is defended (covered up by us) through our conviction that external situations, other people, or certain flaws in ourselves are responsible for our failures and unhappiness.
Bergler challenged the notion of "innocent victim" and proposed that we unconsciously look for, set up, and feed off of the negative dramas in our lives. According to Bergler, we have become attached to and identified with our suffering and our self-defeating thoughts, feelings, and behaviors. Experiencing ourselves as victims, and being immersed in self-hatred and self-defeat, we resist experiences of happiness, success, fun, pleasure, self-love, and self-acceptance.
His theories help us understand contemporary society, for they explain the roots of our self-defeating entanglement with passivity, victimization, helplessness, paranoia, and even violence. He contended that unconsciously we are perceiving and interpreting reality from the infantile, emotional, or child part of ourselves. To put it another way, we have an inner need to experience again and again unresolved feelings such as deprivation, shame, domination, control, rejection, and self-hatred.
Bergler was aware of the enormous resistance to his ideas and understood that we are determined emotionally, through our defenses, not to disturb the psychic status quo. He once said his books were time-bombs that would go off in 100 years. Perhaps now, faced with the crucial need to break out of our personal and national malaise, we can speed up the timetable.
It is an axiom of history and philosophy that the greater the truth, the more we resist it. Humanity took centuries to accept that the earth was round, that it was not the center of the universe. Bergler's theory also threatens our notions of who and what we are, for it asks that we open our minds to the possibility that an unconscious part of ourselves orchestrates an agenda of emotional suffering and self-defeat.
Because we remain so strongly in denial and project our inner conflicts onto others, we resist the notion that a secret program beneath our conscious awareness holds such a dominant position and manifests such a malignant nature.
Freedom from this emotional tyranny comes only when we begin to understand the extent to which we maintain unconscious infantile interpretations and realize how these feelings and beliefs control our reactions and behaviors.
Traditional or pop approaches to self-help and psychotherapy offer coaching, advice, sympathy, and superficial techniques. These approaches fail to expose the origins and attachment to our negative interpretations, nor do they expose our unconscious resistance to good, happiness, success, and self-love. Bergler's approach, by comparison, disturbs our psychic status quo. It penetrates our defenses and exposes what we have been reluctant to see and understand about ourselves.
A good way to understand Bergler is to read our books, which are based on his profound understanding of psychology. Our books provide a deep understanding of the critical factors required in order to choose health and wholeness over self-defeat and self-limitation. Such factors include:
- an awareness of what constitutes self-sabotage and how it operates within our psyche;
- an acknowledgment of the consequences and repercussions of our actions and behaviors on ourselves and on others;
- an awareness of the unconscious perceptions and assumptions that generate our thoughts, feelings, and behaviors;
- an understanding of our unconscious collusion in our problems and how we can shift permanently from a victim mindset to an understanding of co-creative participation in the experiences of our lives, thereby opening ourselves up to positive, creative possibilities;
- techniques to help us shift from a self-centered insecure perspective from where everything has to do with us, to one of trust, self-acceptance, and compassion toward ourselves and others."
I haven't read any of the books referred to above. I have read some writings by and about Bergler in:
If you suffer from Psychological Failure Scripts and/or Psychic Masochism (and most people do), you may be severely disadvantaged. Your Self 1 may be sabotaging your success.
#23. The Phenomenon of Denial
In 'Denial and Acknowledgement: The Impact of Information About Human Rights,' Stanley Cohen describes denial:
"The dictionary definition of the term "denial" refers simply to the assertion that something is not true or does not exist. In a common everyday usage, the term covers various processes by which people block, shut out, repress or cover up certain forms of disturbing information or else evade, avoid or neutralize the implications of this information....[D]enial is an adaptive, instinctual measure built into the organism to protect it from damaging emotion. The defensive evasion or distortion of what one sees or knows is always assumed to be unconscious: "The subject... is never spontaneously aware that he or she 'denies.' Almost always an outside observer is required to notice the phenomenon"."
In 'States of Denial,' Stanley Cohen provides a list of common phrases related to denial:
Denial can be described as:
It's interesting to me that in the references to "denial of personal disadvantage" I found on the Internet, the phenomenon was usually described in terms of women or members of minorities being discriminated against and then denying or underestimating the disadvantages stemming from such discrimination. However, I found no references to anyone discussing denial of personal disadvantage as a central phenomenon that applies to practically all humans.
#24. The Quantum Success Jump
The Quantum Success Jump is the phenomenon of "the last straw that breaks the camel's back" in reverse. As you progressively replace your disadvantages with advantages -- and implement more of the elements in this report -- there comes a point where your ability, skill, and effectiveness suddenly take a big Quantum Success Jump. Michael Jordan and Tiger Woods are two outstanding examples of athletes who have progressively increased their advantages to the point of being a Quantum Success Jump ahead of their competitors.
See also "Quantum Success Jumps" in #TL15: How to Achieve Ultimate Success.
#25. Flexible Goals and Objectives
... [Unfinished]
For details on the remaining success elements, and many more, see:
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