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WAKE UP AMERICA! CHAPTER SIX

HOW TO MASTER POWER, MONEY, AND LOVE

THE POWER OF THE PATH OF LEAST RESISTANCE

This section is largely based on the book The Path of Least Resistance by Robert Fritz. Its theme can be summarized as:

How to orient your life so the path of least resistance automatically leads you towards producing the results you desire in life.

Its fundamental principles (with my own insights added) can be summarized:

Interestingly, after reading The Path of Least Resistance, I realized that nearly seven years ago, when in very poor health (including severe heart disease and mild cancer), I did make the fundamental choice to be healthy. I completely reoriented my life in respect of health and changed my diet and lifestyle drastically. Today I'm superhealthy and moderately fit. I have no heart problems or signs of cancer. I have not spent any time being ill in bed. When I get a cold I usually recover completely within 10-15 minutes. From flu I usually recover in about 3-4 hours. A few months ago I ran up Camelback mountain in Phoenix in a time in minutes which is less than half my age in years. I doubt if there are a hundred people in Phoenix who can do that.

At the time when I made the fundamental choice to be healthy, I also had to make certain primary choices concerning diet and lifestyle. At the time it seemed completely impossible to me that I could live up to these choices, so much so, that I often experienced despair. Nevertheless, I was able to remain true to my choices - and produced results way beyond what I had thought possible. The choices I had made changed underlying structures so the path of least resistance automatically led me to do what was necessary to achieve superhealth and fitness.

This demonstrates one of Fritz's dictums: what you choose does not depend on what you think is possible.

The Pivotal Power Formula
Fritz describes a "pivotal technique" you can apply when circumstances are not to your liking. I have renamed it "the pivotal power formula":

  1. Describe current reality.
  2. Describe the results you want.
  3. Formally choose the results you want ("I choose ....").
  4. Move on; change the focus of your attention; shift gears; do something else. The structural tension generated by steps 1-3 will automatically lead you along the path of least resistance to processes that will enable you to generate the results you have chosen.

The Path of Least Resistance by Robert Fritz is by far the most valuable book in my collection of over 5,000. I know of no book I can recommend more highly.

The Action Shift Power Formula
I have developed a formula you can apply at the action level. It will help you become more aware of when you sink into the reactive-responsive orientation. It may increase your power and creativity phenomenally.

  1. Write down an intended action.
  2. If practical, wait before taking the action.
  3. Ask, "Would this action be reactive-responsive or creative?"
  4. Ask, "What would be a more creative action?"
  5. Sleep on it.
  6. Formulate a more creative action (or list of actions) when you wake up.
  7. Ask, "Will the action(s) produce the results I want?"

Often you will be amazed by the difference between the quality of the action from step 1 and the quality of the action(s) generated during your sleep. The power of the path of least resistance at work!

MASTERING MONEY

The way to achieve money-mastery is to apply the above formulas. Write down your choices. Be specific. Specify what you want. The following ideas may also help:

The Three-Dollar Exercise
Here is an exercise that will help you move on the poverty-prosperity scale, from wherever you are closer to prosperity:

  1. Consider giving away three one dollar bills to three different strangers. The recipients need to be people who don't expect to be given money by strangers - not children, not beggars, not the homeless, not waiters who get tipped.
  2. Write down all the thoughts automatically generated by your mind, for example, "This is crazy," "It is pointless," "They will refuse to take it," "They will be suspicious," "They will laugh at me," "I will feel embarrassed," "I'm too shy to do it." etc.
  3. Notice your reluctance, if any, to do it. Notice if you feel any fear about doing it. Write down whatever you notice.
  4. Decide to go ahead with the exercise. Write down the "preparations" that you think you must make before giving away the money, for example, "What will I say to them?", "What will I tell them if they ask me why I want to give them money?", "What will I do if they refuse to take the money?"
  5. Go to a place like a shopping mall where there are lots of potential recipients. If you have fears about what might happen if many people saw you handing out money, notice this. You could also go to the convenience store on the corner, where there are not too many people, and you may be able to give away a dollar to someone without anyone else noticing. (Isn't it crazy what considerations we have about so simple an act as giving away a dollar to a stranger?)
  6. Give away your three dollars.
  7. Write down how you did it and how the recipients reacted. Notice your thoughts and feelings and write them down. What did you learn from the experience?
  8. Write down what you learned about yourself and your relationship to money. Did you notice any habitual negativity?
  9. Can you change your habitual thoughts and feelings about money?

We can think of humans behaving according to programs in their minds. To the extent that these programs produce desirable or worthwhile results, we can call them "human success programs." To the degree that they produce negative results, we might call them "human failure programs."

Prosperity-consciousness is a human success program. Poverty-consciousness is a human failure program. The purpose of the "three-dollar exercise" is to raise your awareness of any failure programs you have about money and to begin replacing them with success programs.

Affirmations
This is a systematic method for replacing human failure programs with human success programs. It is a method for reprogramming your mind, developed by Leonard Orr, founder of "Rebirthing":

AFFIRMATION               RESPONSE
-----------               --------
I am a master of money    But I don't have any
I am a master of money    Why am I doing this?
I am a master of money    You're kidding
I am a master of money    This is a waste of time
I am a master of money    I'm always broke
I am a master of money    I will never make it
I am a master of money    I always lose my money
I am a master of money    Money is evil
I am a master of money    Money is ugly and filthy
I am a master of money    I really hate money
I am a master of money    Rich people are evil
I am a master of money    Etc.

The Treasure Map
A Treasure Map is a visual tool for building the inner experience of a desired result in its completed form in order to facilitate its manifestation. It is a pictorial representation of your goals. It is similar to the blueprint of the architect used by the builder to manifest the building.

Your Treasure Map can contain drawings, pictures cut from magazines, and photos. It may contain a photo of yourself having achieved the desired result. It can be any size you like.

It could also contain your fundamental, primary, and secondary choices. Your Treasure Map could be colorful - the more colors the better.

You may want to look at your Treasure Map when you wake up in the morning and just before you go to sleep in the evening.

Your Treasure Map helps create the "structural tension" Robert Fritz talks about.

Books on Mastering Money
The following books may be useful (see Annotated Bibliography):

MASTERING LOVE

The basic procedure for achieving the love relationship you want is to choose it:

Observe your behavior for bicameral stage two make-wrong - see Chapter Five. Eliminate all blame and make-wrong. Increase your awareness to the consciousness stage.

It worked for me! - despite the fact that my list of required qualities was extremely exacting - I doubt if even one in a million women would meet my requirements. Using the above procedure, I found the "perfect woman of my dreams." We have an idyllic love relationship.

Books on Mastering Love

THE POWER OF HUMAN CHOICE

We may need a technique for making a choice "stick." It involves repetition of the choice. The reason for this is that we may have made deep-seated, unconscious, contrary choices. The new choice has to replace the old choices. This is the technique:

We can regard ourselves as "result-producing systems" that contain these elements:

  1. Choices - fundamental, primary, and secondary.
  2. Paradigms (mind structures, or mental models).
  3. Thoughts.
  4. Feelings.
  5. Actions.
  6. Consequences or results.
  7. Observations.
  8. Questions.

Our primary power comes from our ability to make choices. Our secondary power comes from our actions. Choice is applied freedom. Action is applied knowledge. Our paradigms, thoughts, and feelings stand between our choices and our actions. They may help or hinder our actions. They are also cognitive and emotional connections between actions and results.

We gain power by observing the results we produce, asking questions, and improving our choices and paradigms.

There is a problem in that many of our actions have consequences that manifest in the distant future or out of our sight where we cannot see them. In The Fifth Discipline: The Art and Practice of the Learning Organization Peter M. Senge tells us how to solve this problem.


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