Here’s Why Most People Aren’t Successful and How You Can Ensure You’ll Succeed
I woke up rudely awakened yesterday morning as to how much many of us have actually gone backwards as individuals.
Ask yourself: Have you gone backwards?
Do you need to know everything and react to every notification?
- Do you act on every impulse at the expense of your control and self-directed action?
- Do you control your environment or does it control you? It’s a massively important question for you to consider.
- Are you aware that the ‘world’ is just a projection of how you see it, and because of that, you have the power to create it for yourself and the rest of us?
For those of you who have maximized your potential and living fulfilled lives, is your will aimed at achieving power as your end-all be-all purpose?
Most who master themselves, their work and their ‘universe’ — end up believing that is all there is.
Some of the leading thinkers of our time believe this is humanity’s ultimate aim.
“The power to cause pain is the only power that matters, the power to kill and destroy, because if you can’t kill then you are always subject to those who can, and nothing and no one will ever save you.” — Orson Scott Card in Ender’s Game
If you think that’s poppycock and the most powerful ‘give back’ or choose to act altruistic (whether one participates in philanthropy doesn’t make them necessarily so), once achieving the highest levels of power or self actualization, just look at the results on the news every day.
- Countries CAN get a long, they choose to bicker.
- Wars CAN be averted, they’re not. Leaders choose to play Game of Thrones in real life.
If you’re thinking, well what do you do about crazy people like Kim Jong Un or whoever else, that’s precisely the point. A world leader acts that way and the rest of the world thinks force is the way to have him stop.
It’s NOT.
I propose flipping Maslow’s hierarchy on it’s head and focusing on conscious awareness, and cultivating the skills, education, resilience and fortitude to live in a high state.
A state that makes you powerful and conscious. A state where you love learning with the right intention behind your curiosity.
We’re so worried about physical safety and ‘security for our people’ we illicit and create ‘enemies’ that come for us.
The idiocy of fighting and killing each other over land which there’s plenty of. Who cares about a story from the past and who get’s what and why.
It’s just a story, and doesn’t exist.
All you have and ever will have is now. — Eckart Tolle
There’s plenty of it to live everywhere, and if you simply invite your neighbor to join you, they won’t be perceived as ‘occupiers’, and won’t want to ‘occupy’ or take your land in the first place if they knew you were inviting.
But who cares about land anyway? Why can’t we get over the myth of ‘countries’?
Because we’ve devolved and moved backwards.
All these problems are the result of constructs in our minds and we haven’t cracked that mental ‘code’ of awareness yet.
Or at least, most of the individuals in the world, who, for the context of this piece, make up ‘humanity’ in the last 34 years.
I’m here to say that we individual humans, over the last 34 years, are going through growing pains and have devolved as a result of all the worldly progress we’ve made.
Call it ‘worldly evolution pains’, or ‘evolutionary pains’.
As much as technology has improved ‘the world’ (which is still a projection), the fact that we have enough access to information and science, to teach and provide the knowledge to the masses that answer some of the biggest questions like:
Do people experience more happiness than they used to?
People overall don’t experience or ‘aren’t happier’ than they used to be 30 years ago.
As much as life-expectency has gone up, perceived quality of life has gone down.
Spend all day with Facebook open? Each time you check, you get unhappier and unhappier, fact.
Ask yourself how much time you spend on Facebook, Instagram or Snapchat?
Expectations for existing are so high, and reality hasn’t kept pace.
Every 20 year old today needs to change the world to be happy and that is a partial good sign.
However it’s not fine if they’re killing themselves because of the pressure and they can’t be happy without galavanting across the world like the one friend in their 3000 person friend group because that person posts the most to Instagram and makes up 80% of their feed while the rest are silent.
This isn’t to make some political statement and this isn’t to be pessimistic, I’m actually the most optimistic person you’ll know but I also like to be radically truthful.
It’s to point out the human side effects and benchmarking it with technological progress — so you can re-evolve.
While it’s not to say we shouldn’t have technology, it is having some short term side effects that have caused us to devolve.
It’s harder than ever for most of us to even single task, much less have a clear and still mind, or have the mindful presence to observe and understand ourselves and really think instead of having our environments and media determine our actions.
Most of the people reading this may very well have the presence of mind and skills to create the world they wish to see.
While we’ve always had enlightened sages like Buddha, and Jesus and Tony Robbins and Wayne Dyer and Benjamin P. Hardy — who have been essentially spreading the same awakened message for so long — humans still either can’t learn, choose not to, or don’t want to accept wise teachings to follow a higher path because it takes radical commitment and discipline which haven’t been cultivated and in fact, the opposite has.
Have young people in generations past ever been so entitled? I’m not sure but I’d bet not.
With that said, here are 8 ways you’ve gone backwards
1. If A Will To Acquire Power Is Your Purpose
“A living thing seeks above all to discharge its strength — life itself is will to power; self-preservation is only one of the indirect and most frequent results.” — Friedrich Neitzsche
Once you get everything you want, what then?
I’ve thought a lot about this question.
When people self-actualize, and ask themselves ‘now what?’ — they can either give back or take more.
Even though my start up is just getting off the ground, I’m generally very happy and content.
I understand how happiness chemicals work, what fulfills me and the benefits and limitations of money. I’ve both had lot’s of it and had little.
In a nutshell, I can project and know what it would feel like to be a billionaire even though I’m far from it.
My visualizations of becoming what I want to become and acting the part has caused dreams of it.
One is of me in a fireside chat where I’m the billionaire being interviewed and the interviewer asked me in front of a crowd:
“What’s it like having over $1 billion wired to your bank account?”
My response:
“You know, not much changes, the money are numbers on a bank statement.
I still have my family, my father’s still aging and I have a few more friends.
But as counter intuitive as it sounds, it’s not fun anymore.
Like, I remember when I first moved into my Soho loft with three buddies.
This place was amazing but a little expensive even though we were sharing it. We were all a little over extended.
So we’d Airbnb our rooms and rent it out for events and the thrill of making $400 extra a month was just so good.
Or chasing that first enterprise sale that takes a year when you’re doing a start up. When you have a billion dollars, the problem is always solved or bought or I can just pick up the phone and raise more money if the company needs it etc. etc.
Constraints create a kind of force that taps into creativity you never knew you could have.
It’s a higher stakes game when the downside is higher and very real. Now of course, being a billionaire comes with responsibilities and the capacity to change the world so it’s also amazing.
But it’s different you know.”
I highly recommend everyone doing that exercise, visualizing being who they want to be, and answering those questions.
It’s empowering.
2. Your Conscious Self Awareness Is Low, Even With All The Data Available on How Consciousness Works
“The quest to find answers, gives meaning to our existence.” — my belief on the meaning of life
If I’m a 34 year old human who isn’t special with average IQ and commits himself to evolve and strives daily to be as understanding and aware of this world, myself and this gift called life, so can everyone else.
Curiosity is king.
However most choose not to. With all the information at our fingertips
Leaders of nations know what to do to enlighten their populations, they choose not to.
Leaders of corporations know how to engineer products so they don’t hook everyone, they choose not to.
Mark Zuckerberg has the choice not to make Facebook an addictive media machine that’s literally optimized to suck your attention dry but he chooses not to.
He does what he has to to make money for his shareholders which is ruthlessly competing against everyone else for growth via your attention.
I’m not saying I’m a socialist, far from it, love capitalism but Zuckerberg should (selfishly) choose a different path for himself by serving the rest of the world.
The ultimate ego trip.
I’m not Zuckerberg but if I was responsible for billions of people with my product, I’d try to make more responsible decisions that benefited mankind over the long haul instead of sell sell sell and hook hook hook.
3. With All The Data Available, You Still Choose Not To Stay Unconscious and Remain Blind
Nothing in all the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity. Martin Luther King, Jr.
Thinking for yourself requires a yearning to acquire knowledge while constantly letting go of the acquisitive selfishness and evolutionary brain that’s evolved to keep us frightened and paranoid.
I suffer so much from this and it’s hard to
4. If You Work At a Gigantic Media Organization And Choose To Sensationalize At The Expense of Human Consciousness to Get Eyeballs
“All I know is just what I read in the papers, and that’s an alibi for my ignorance.” — Will Rogers
Media companies know what they should report on, and most importantly, how to report on it through effective means that inform and help people understand, yet they make the choice to report with urgency, hype and sensationalism, to further take advantage of humanity’s low consciousness to get eyeballs.
They’ll do anything and everything for their advertisers and owners who control them at the expense of the people they’re supposed to serve.
Yes, if there was a terrorist attack in Paris, it should be reported on so the people of the United States can know.
However there’s a way to thoughtfully report, with dignity and respect — not the idiotic. It’s the same reason I am forced to title this piece in list format.
But I’m a little guy, media companies are owned by big boys.
Assuming your viewer isn’t an information junkie who’s to be sucked in.
They view humanity as a herd to be controlled and know exactly how toengineer this control while making people believe they have freedom of choice.
“A societal prison is so cleverly designed that most people don’t even realize they have no actual freedom.”
Here’s why I say ‘humanity has gone backward’.
It’s not as much the general populations, rather, the people in power who know this stuff, have full agency and utility to do anything they want, and yet choose to not only not act differently, but go in the extreme opposite direction playing their Game of Thrones.
5. You Choose To Lessen Your Conscious Awareness With Drugs Like Alcohol
Alcohol gives you infinite patience for stupidity — Sammy Davis Jr.
You may think drinking alcohol is normal, but it’s not.
It’s a new drug introduced by dealers who didn’t care about humanity in the last century. They cared to make money by getting you hooked on a substance that people at the time didn’t know enough about, and now it’s too late as it’s culturally accepted and we’re hooked on it.
Meanwhile, people die everyday from drinking, drunk driving and it’s horrible for your body. There are more enlightening ways to get high on life, have fun and release inhibitions.
6. Your Biggest Incentive To Take Any Action Is Due to Fear of Missing Out
“The reason we struggle with insecurity is because we’re comparing our behind the scenes with everyone else’s highlight reel.”
FOMO.
We always need to know for knowing’s sake, while having the awareness that we don’t need to read that article on FB.
If you think this is normal, and you aren’t aware of it, you’re moving backward.
7. You Aren’t Aware of How Pre-Determined Your Life Is
The mind that is capable of choosing is not free because in choice there is always conflict, conscious or unconscious, and a mind that is in conflict is never free. — Krishnamurti
Not because of some divinely determined cause or creator, but because of the lack of awareness around your subconscious programming, and where it comes from.
95% of our behavior comes from our subconscious, which means we don’t determine it until we learn to program our subconscious, which most people aren’t aware of.
If this was taught in school, instead of dragging us up at 7am to learn history and geometry, the result could be people who have more control over their actions or at least an understanding of how taking action works.
8. You Don’t Know What Love Is
A truly loving person can actually spend their whole lives with anyone and be absolutely fine with it. Remove possession and self interest from a family — and see how fruitful that family becomes! — me
Love is so far from what most of us think it is today.
Most of you believe love is
- A feeling of passion.
- Attachment.
- Possession (I will love him or her and do anything for that person if this person does or fulfills these things for me)
Love is a state of existence, that’s internal, and doesn’t discriminate.
It’s all around, with everyone, all the time — or it’s not.
Life partnering with someone to ‘build a family’ has nothing to do with this state of love.
Yes, you cultivate a relationship over time and yes the ‘bond’ get’s deeper — but your state of lovingness again has nothing to do with the bond itself, it has to do with you.
Most of you delude yourselves into thinking you get married for ‘love’ while actually deciding unconsciously to marry for evolutionary reasons like security and expansion.
Again, it’s ‘normal’, it’s not love.
- The guy who married the girl for her ‘great family’.
- The guy who married the girl because she looks physically attractive enough.
- “She’s a good catch” or “he’d make a good father”
All have nothing to do with love.
8 Ways You Can Turn It Around And Achieve Individual Excellence
1. Learn To Evaluate Your Life By Taking a ‘God’s Eye View’
“Knowledge has always flowed upwards, to bishops and kings, not down to serfs and slaves. The principle remains the same in the present era . . . governments dare to aspire, through their intelligence agencies, to a god-like knowledge of every one of us. — Julian Assange”
I don’t mean you should delude yourself to ‘believe you’re God’ or ‘A God’ or anything else.
I mean apply the scope of a ‘master of the universe’ and believe in your power to affect the universe.
Form opinions from that point of view.
This is empowering and elevates you to a high state and point of view of the world and what happens in it.
Which gives you understanding and begins to form the basis to think for yourself.
The ‘masters of the universe’ or leaders who are responsible for massive organizations think this way.
They know the human condition, they understand how human networks form industries. They know market cycles, and they time trends.
They know the value possibilities with fast growth and exponential change. They know how to start a business quickly and make it valued at $1 billion (mechanics of entrepreneurship).
These are people who have ‘acted the part’ and often believe in themselves so much they don’t believe they can be wrong and have the trust and conviction any super power could have (yes the result is a lot of crazy ones).
People actually believe we’ll soon be able to live forever and I actually believe it.
To that I say, elevate.
2. Understand The Difference Between Power and Force
“Power serves others, whereas force is self-serving. True statesmen serve the people; 10 politicians exploit people to serve their own ambitions. Statesmen sacrifice themselves to serve others; politicians sacrifice others to serve themselves.” — Sir David Hawkins
Force creates counterforce. 100% of the time.
When you consider the complexity and creativity of the human mind, if you create 10 amounts of force, you can expect 20 amounts back, if that human has the capacity to bring it.
Power on the other hand creates synergy.
Wars to eradicate an ‘enemy’ is force.
Treating the ‘enemy’ like not just a human, but a fellow brother in arms and asking them what they want is what ‘eradicates an enemy’, by acknowledging there are no such things as enemies.
There’s just politics and money, which bring out the worst in us and make powerful men play God games for fun simply because they’re bored. I believe that statement at the bottom of my heart.
When you’re really bored and have everything, the extent to which you’ll ‘play games’ with others is endless.
“Forgive them father for they know not what they do.” — Luke 23:34
3. Lost Potential Is The Only Fear You Should Have
“Do not let the memories of your past limit the potential of your future. There are no limits to what you can achieve on your journey through life, except in your mind.”
Maximizing your potential is a series of choices, why not make them?
The opposite is a choice.
It’s a way of thinking and shaping your environment and an addiction you just need to get yourself addicted to.
I don’t use the word addicted as a bad thing, as we’re all addicted to TV, food, coffee, reading etc. etc.
Addictions can be good things or bad, it’s good to know the difference between a habit and an addiction.
But get addicted to flow (work you’re great at), endorphins (exercise) and getting high on life.
4. Understand Mastery Is Not About What You Do but How You Do It
“How do you do anything is how you do everything.”
Mastering yourself and/or your work will thrust you back toward growth and positive evolution.
Robert Greene’s masterful (no pun intended) book on mastery is the best on the subject I’ve ever come across. He says:
This ‘love’ he talks about is a state, that comes from deliberate practice no matter what it is you’re doing.
There are people who are masters of every moment of their existence who don’t have jobs that are all that exciting, while there are over achieving bulldozers who hard charge and brashly force their way through which isn’t mastery.
The former is a master who has a better human experience than the bulldozing who’s stressed out all the time.
The poise and mindfulness to know what one’s capable of, know what being content is .
This person gives themselves the time and space to ultimately do masterful work.
Any task done in this state, can be loved.
Anything you invest yourself in, can be loved — whether you’re a cashier or CEO.
It’s about state.
My best friend is in an introductory accounting job for the last five years and he’s the happiest and most content person I know.
I envy him as I commit my life to keeping my scared and paranoid over achievement in check.
He’s the master, not me.
But I’m on my way to mastering this so am optimistic.
5. Understand How Belief Works
If you do not believe in yourself, no one will. In order to achieve success, you need to feel confident about your abilities and know that you will get where you want to go.
Beliefs are programs that create behavior, just like an algorithm.
So if you can create a new program (belief), you’ll get new behaviors.
This is critical to understand as the #1 reason people don’t maximize their potential is because of what they believe they’re capable of.
It holds them back. It blocks any chance of having them succeed. I suffer with this.
You can’t do anything if you’re doomed by not believing that anything is possible.
This is literally the only difference between someone who goes from nothing to president like Barack Obama to.
If you believe, you’ll persevere. If you believe, you’ll find the education, connections and everything else you need to succeed.
6. Understand The Mechanics of Achievement
Happiness lies in the joy of achievement and the thrill of creative effort — Franklin D. Roosevelt
You should believe that what one conceives and believes, one can achieve. Literally anything.
I wanted to host world class events from a world class apartment in NYC, I did it.
It failed as a business but I did it
And I didn’t do it because I was wealthy or got the money from my parents, I did it because I learned from the first family I worked for six years in my first job on how to get things done.
So I moved to NYC for the first time, raised capital for the first time, moved into a 6,000 ft loft at 17th and 5th ave. and I did it. It failed.
I started the second company. I found partners, raised the money and we’re selling ours software to Fortune 500’s and billion dollar pharmaceutical companies.
I was terrible in school, don’t have a high IQ and dropped out of college.
All I have is balls and belief and my programming for high standards.
Thank God I was blessed to be ‘programmed’ with high standards at least.
Mom, Dad and the Bisnow family gave me that.
7. Understand the Power of Letting Go and Do It Everyday
“If we let go of guilt, we will see innocence; however, a guilt-ridden person will see only evil. The basic rule is that we focus on what we have repressed.”
We hold so much oppressed and suppressed baggage from our lives, it’s the gift and curse of being human and comes with this multi million year old brain we have.
Letting go is a mechanism of non-resistance, acknowledgement and most importantly, release.
Let go of fear.
- Let go of pain.
- Let go of anxiety.
- Let go of envy.
Practicing this and doing so is the greatest ritual you can apply to your existence.
8. Wake Up! Be Extremely Self Reliant
“When you are content to be simply yourself and don’t compare or compete, everyone will respect you.”
― Lao Tzu, Tao Te Ching
Don’t let your internet and your environment control you, control it.
Don’t let people think for you, think for yourself. Know everything. Have confidence.
You have everything you need and ever will need. A ‘connection’ or guru won’t save you, you can only save yourself.
Don’t idolize anyone, idolize yourself. Imagine you’re there and believe it. It’s all within yourself.
Have an inner revolution and embrace the journey for all and everything and the nothing that it’s good for.
We’re all going to die and it’s not a bad thing.
It’s evolution and it comes with it’s gifts and curses.
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