Changes, Part 3/3: From the mouths of elephants

In Part 2/3: Meet the Elephant God, of my three part series on making changes, I introduced Ganesha and Boku, and explained how Boku had inadvertently called upon the Hindu god Ganesha to help him turn his life around. Ganesha gave him philosophy, chores, chiding and more in order to help Boku grow and expand his world.

Here is the list of the things that Ganesha has Boku do, in order to rework his life so that he develops a totally new outlook, and improves his potential to become exactly what he has always envisioned he wanted to become (in his mind). My interpretation of the acts follows.

You may say to yourself, "what the heck is THIS good for?", but let me tell you that these concepts are all very much entrenched in the minds of successful Japanese businessmen and have been employed for a very long time.

In parentheses are some names that Ganesha dropped when he was telling his stories about how he helped these people achieve greatness. There were several other names, but when I asked Mayu she couldn't remember the specific stories to which the famous people were connected. So I share with you those that we could work out.

• Polish your shoes regularly - Always keep all of your "tools for the job" that you rely upon regularly daily for survival in excellent condition. (Ichiro of Seattle Mariners fame)
  
• Donate your change at convenient store - When Rockefeller was a young man, even before he was rich and famous he continued to donate 10% of his income for worthy causes. By supporting other causes you support yourself. (Rockefeller)
  
• Don’t fill up yourself when you eat - When you fill yourself totally full, your brain shuts down from overeating so if you go to 80%, your mind will stay sharp.
  
• See through other’s wants to find their needs - People hardly ever tell you exactly what they mean, even if they tell you "I always say what I mean". I reality, they don't. There is always an underlying meaning to their words. If you ask a customer what they would like in a new product, they can usually never tell you. But if you make a habit of "listening", and looking, you can learn to read between the lines and discover their true thoughts. (Henry Ford)
  
• Make people you met laugh - Have a life with a sense of humour to soften the air, and improve communication. (Southwest Airlines)
  
• Clean your toilet daily - This is an activity that people always try to avoid. By learning to do the things that people don't want to do, you open yourself up to new possibilities. (Soichiro Honda)
  
• Go home straight from work – Avoid dallying or wasting time then you have more time to do your own planned things.
  
• Praise yourself for some achievement - Even if you've had a bad day there must have been something in your life that you can praise to give yourself a boost. And as the day progresses you can build up your confidence with little victories.
  
• Quit something you always do for a day - This will open up more time to do something new [and the one I talked about in the previous installment].
  
• Create the environment to stick to what you decided to do - Actively create the environment which forces you to think about your actions, rather than just involuntarily "reacting". Actively work towards your goals with your mind "in the moment".
  
• Check and settle yourself in the mirror from head to toe every morning - Your inner spirit takes a great deal to change, but your outer appearance can degenerate very easily so always make sure that you look your best to yourself every day.
  
• Ask around to find out what you are the best at - You can learn a lot from other people about yourself. You may find that others have a much different opinion of abilities you never knew you had which may open up new fields to venture into.
  
• Ask around to find out what you are the worst at - We often turn a blind eye to our faults and weaknesses, so it is essential to act upon them by first finding out what they are.
  
• Imagine your dream pleasantly - Enjoy the dreams and goals you have without forcing yourself to stress too much over it.
  
• Speak out that you are lucky - Physically say the words "I am lucky" and you will transmit that positive feeling to the Universe, which will come back to you magnified, in kind.
  
• Try to get something for free - In order to do this, you will need to explain WHY you want something for free. This will help you to develop better negotiation skills, and learn how to express yourself better.
  
• Prepare for tomorrow - Make plans precisely in order to maximize your time, and efforts so that you are not caught off-guard by any unexpected events. And stick to the plan.
  
• Make someone closest to you happy - We often think about pleasing the customer, and customer is #1, but it is important not to forget all of the sacrifices that those people very close to you do, and to actively appreciate them as well, as they are your support network, more so than the customers. Usually the day has a schedule, and everyone does their thing, so in order to really make someone happy you need to look at the events and the people around you in order to determine what is really important and needed by those people.
  
• Find one good thing about someone and praise it - Sometimes you have to really think hard to praise people, especially when you are in a difficult situation. But it is important to watch people carefully and always look for something positive about the people, to let them know that you appreciate their strength.
  
• Steal someone’s good points - Very few people invent the wheel, but everyone tries to reinvent it by improving upon it. If something works for someone, it may work for you.
  
• Keep your eyes on classified ads - It is important to see what kind of work is out there and be ready to make yourself available for positions that you may have never known existed before.
  
• Pay a visit to a shrine, temple, church - Many people think that visiting a holy place is "meaningless", but even those who don't believe in God, or Gods, will find that by visiting holy places to show your respect, they will care more for you. If you care less for them, they will care less for you. And nobody can prove or disprove the actual existence of the gods, so why reduce your potential for Supernatural assistance?
  
• Visit popular shops and watch for the reasons - Popular businesses are popular for a reason. It can help you tremendously to find out exactly what these businesses are doing right. And then steal the concept.
  
• Give a surprise gift - Surprise people with something small and make them happy for no reason at all.
  
• Start something you regret that you haven’t done today - Whenever we regret not doing something we should have (like a load of laundry), that is actually a sign to you to tell you to do it right now. So don't just waste your time regretting, and not doing; get off your but and start it right then and there!
  
• Talk about your dream as service - If you talk about your dreams and plans based on you as the center of attention, people will get tired of listening. But if you find a way to think of your plan, dream and goal as somehow serving others and including good things for others (not just for self), people will pay much more attention and strive to help make your goals a reality. (Konousuke Matsushita - Panasonic).
  
• Support other people’s success - When you support people and give them positive energy through being supportive, even when they become extremely successful (i.e. don't feel jealous), that support will come back to you in the future.
  
• Apply, Enter - The more times you apply for things, or enter things, the better the chance you have of winning something. If you don't apply, you can't win.
  
• Appreciate every day - Whether you are successful or not, happy or unhappy,, take the time to appreciate all the little things in life that we take for granted (like water coming out of a tap when you turn a knob to fill a tea kettle with water) because all of these things, at one time, did not exist without much creation and suffering by someone in the past. We may think that we can live our life alone, but without all of the conveniences around us created by others who came before us, life would be very difficult therefore it is important to appreciate it all.

And that, my friends, is it! Why don't you see if you can apply one, a few, some, several, many or all of these very good ways to improve your life today?! Don't have time to improve yourself? Really? Well, how about you stop reading my blogs, and instead do something else? That's a possibility... (I wouldn't recommend stop going to the bathroom, though *wink*)

Would you like to review parts one and two? Here you go!

• Changes, Part 1/3: Mind, Intention and Outcomes
• Changes, Part 2/3: Meet the Elephant God

Have a lovely day.


Cam

Changes, Part 2/3: Meet the Elephant God

In Part One of my three part series on Change I was telling you how I have learned through real life experiences that trying to fit more into an already full day is practically impossible. I am a very disciplined person who is able to multi-task to some extent (breathe and answer the phone at the same time without too much effort) and I must admit that it doesn't make sense to follow the belief that you can always add more just by "working harder or smarter". Those who do jam more stuff in usually end up burning out and dropping even more of the stuff they can't afford to give up due to brain (and body) drain. So this "smarter, harder" belief is not sustainable for ordinary mortals such as me.

But I figured out how to do it. the answer is brilliant and yet sooo obvious at the same time that I still slap myself in my forehead and say, "How could I have bee so stooopid?!?"

I'm glad I figured out how to make time for adding meditation and reading in my day; I need this time at this point in my life because changes are in order. I do not have the tools to easily make these changes, but I want to acquire them. And in order to do this, I need more time to learn how to find, and then use these "tools of change".

Considering how I haven't been able to add this stuff into my life for the past couple of years I never thought I really could, but thanks to a book that Mayu just finished reading, something she explained to me one day gave me an "Aha!" moment that makes perfect sense. Let me tell you a bit about this book ...

A Japanese businessman wants change in his life; he desperately craves change, but he doesn't really know what to do, or how to do it. So he takes a trip to India to try and shake up his boring life. It doesn't work. Or so he thinks.

One night some time after his return and his life has returned to the same old doldrums he goes out to a party and gets really drunk. He comes home and passes out, only to wake up to a dream/nightmare vision of a fat elephant-headed chain-smoking, bitching Indian god that floats around his apartment, and constantly drives him nuts.

The businessman realizes that this god Ganesha is there to help him change his life. If the man promises to do exactly as Ganesha says, he will have the chance to improve himself and thus his life dramatically, but if he ignores any of the steps, or fails to do as he is told, he will be doomed to live his life in boring mediocrity, and exactly the way he does not want to live!

From that point on, Ganesha, a very human-like God who is completely addicted to cigarettes, loves bacon and a specific Japanese sweet gives the businessman ("Boku", or "me") lots of tips about life in a very realistic, and extremely funny way. The strangest thing is that this elephant-headed stubborn, bitching, grumbling and very picky god speaks for some strange reason to Boku entirely in Osaka dialect, which according to the Tokyoites, a very funny way for a god to talk.

Boku agrees to write up a contract with Ganesha to follow his advice and do as told. He then learns every day the most bizarre things that to him, seem to have absolutely no relevancy to becoming a better, enlightened person! In fact, these seemingly incongruous lessons sound more like an excuse for Ganesha to hang around, chain smoke, be fed bacon every day, and have a place to sleep.

But as the days pass, Boku starts to understand more and more how these simple principles in life can have a huge change on the way we perceive our world, and thus the way we act within it. And this is where the change comes in.

In the end, as time draws near, Ganesha finally fades away, leaving Boku on his own, having learned all of the lessons taught, and ready to head back into the world, a changed man. The epilogue shows Ganesha appearing to some other person in need of life lessons and talks about Boku as "that famous architect". So it obviously worked!

The funny thing about this is that Ganesha uses all of the famous people in the world for examples that he personally visited and helped become famous: Bill Gates, Soichiro Honda, Ichiro, Richard Branson, The Wright Brothers, Thomas Edison, and more, all the way back to the ancients (as gods live forever). Mayu was laughing the entire time she was reading this book. She likes to read at night to fall asleep, but during this book instead of falling asleep, she would wake me up at 2am with her laughing! I am glad it was a wonderful book for her because I only had to deal with night laughter two or three nights in a row.

Here is one of the things that Ganesha taught Boku, and one that makes a lot of sense to me, and gave me that "Aha!" moment I was talking about earlier:

We all have ONLY 24 hours a day and in our busy life, those 24 hours are often all booked up. It is important to add new things, try new things in order to grow but how do we fit them in? This is the biggest issue most people have. Ganesha explains that in order to fit in more than what we can do, sometimes we have to take away some things. This means in order to do something new, we need to stop doing something old (Boku sells his chesterfield so he doesn't come home from work, plop down on it, turn the TV on and waste time vegging out). And then that space will open up. Just adding another thing onto an already full schedule won't work, even though people say "squeeze it in". It never lasts. The trick is to STOP doing something else, to give up something else, and then you can get the time for something new.

In Part 3/3: From the mouths of elephants, I shall share the 20+ activities that Ganesha uses to train the people who want to move onto greatness. I will also try to explain the philosophy behind them, just in case you are wondering HOW some of these things could possibly be of help. But when you read these, please keep in mind all of the activities that the Karate Kid had to go through in his training...

I love you!

Cam

Changes, Part 1/3: Mind, Intention and Outcomes

When I visited NC and went to the Mindspring seminar, I purchased a 8CD set that is all about "Mind, Intention, and Outcomes". There are "seven processes" that the CEO of the company takes us through that helps us to become the observers of our universe. And as the observers of our universe, we consciously create the outcomes we deeply desire. I started listening daily, and have recently started process two. I try to do them back to back which takes an hour but I could do one at a time if I wished. When I am ready, comfortable with the process and able to do it with ease, that is the time I open a new CD and start another process. These CDs are not designed to listen completely through from start to end; they are intended to be integrated into our lives. this may take weeks, months or years, but that's OK because the results and the change is what is important.

Here are some very powerful words:

"Do you often wonder why things turn out the way they do? Do you believe you can live the life of your choice? 'Mind, Intention and Outcomes' is a powerful and lasting resource that serves as a catalyst for growth, guidance and mastery of the answers within your Self. It assumes that you are the architect of your life and work, capable of directing the energy, flow and intention of your mind, body and emotions, regardless of the circumstances.

If you believe you will never be happy, you won't be. If you believe you are less than, you are and you will function that way. If you see yourself as powerless, then you will function as a powerless person and will use enormous opportunities in your life as circumstances in which to feel more powerlessness. As odd as it may seem, just when you think you have no choice in a difficult event, chances are you have been fooled. It is your mind at work. For you see, your function is not up to your mind, but to you, your Self, the one who is aware of your mind.

But consider another scenario. Consider changing your function. Do you believe that the mind is capable of bringing this new, powerful thought to reality? By increasing your attention and intention, you not only transform your Self, but also your workplace and your family. You are the agent of change and growth in your life and work. Stop procrastinating and stop postponing your goals and dreams. Begin creating your tomorrow today."

I have also started reading again. After my MBA I became so burned out with research and reading that honestly I haven't wanted to open a book in over a year! Instead I have been focusing intently on communicating with all of YOU through these blogs, because at this point in my life, communication with real live people who can interact back with me is more important than "book knowledge". But it is time to start reading again. I need to whittle down my huge pile of books.

But I have so many other things to do in the day that I really didn't know how I could add these hours in. I know that squeezing in more to a busy schedule rarely works in a sustainable way. I also know that "work harder, work smarter" is bullshit. It doesn't work; it's an ideal that can never really be achieved. It sounds great, makes us all look good, but it isn't a realistic way to achieve sustainable long-term change of habits.

But I figured out how to do this, thanks to a book Mayu just recently finished. And I'll tell you about this book in Part 2/3: Meet the Elephant God ...

Cam

P.S. You can visit Mindspring Consulting's website at http://www.helpingyougrow.com/. If you can afford the time and investment in your future to take any of their seminars, I highly recommend it. Located in the beautiful mountain town of Asheville, Haydn and Terry have been bringing "enlightenment" to businesses and individuals alike for almost two decades. Their products are not cheap by any means, but they are excellent!