Welp, the past few days have been completely miserable. I’ve been almost completely bedridden for the past several days, stuck in a haze between brain wrenching headaches, blood curling chills, and of course, soul-crushing fatigue that bordered on the edge of insomnia.
Not to mention the other common annoyances that come equipped with a flu: A stuffy nose, a pesky cough, and a diet which has consisted of saltines, Gatorade, and soup.
Methinks I came down with a case of influenza a - the current viral boogeyman from the corporate press’s perspective (which could be organic or could be another stunt USAID pulled off, story for another day).
Needless to say, I didn’t get much accomplished these past few days.
But I got a chance to rest. And recover.
And rest and recover I did, laddies.
Since I’m behind today and have several days worth of work to catch up with, I figured I’d share an important Bene Gesserit lesson, the powerful witch religion from Dune, since Children of Dune was all the reading my brain could handle while my body battled a particularly tough battle with disease.
Anyway, the lesson I’m about to share is, in many ways, the most important, the most fundamental lesson you need for success.
It’s a prerequisite for success. And it’s a prerequisite for failure too.
Huh? What tf does that even mean El Johnorino? Are you still in a flu-induced stupor?
Allow me to explain, cully:
The biggest enemy that you’ll ever face in your life is not scary governmental overlords, it’s not the state of the economy, the current president, your biggest competitor, your biggest critic or hater, or anything of the like.
No.
Your biggest enemy is you.
And without knowing how to win the battle for yourself, every success and every failure results in yet another failure.
The opposite here is also true:
Figure out how to win this internal battle, and every success and every failure results in another springboard for success.
And the Bene Gesserit witches, despite being a fictional creation of one Frank Herbert (a man truly wise beyond his years), have a special training to ensure you win this battle against yourself:
Prana-bindu training, as they call it.
(Both prana and bindu come from Sanskrit, the sacred language of Hinduism—so mayhap Frank created these fictional ideas based on it… or mayhap his creativity led him to an undeniable truth.)
Anyway, in Children of Dune a new Bene Gesserit student is introduced, and the reader watches him go through his first training: Watching his hand grow through time.
It takes this student 8 full days to realize this training, to be able to move the winds of time through his hand, in either direction: from infant hands to old and decrepit hands. Back and forth.
When he finally witnesses time like this for himself, he rushes into his teacher’s chambers to share it with her, to which she says, “You've learned a most important lesson . Do you know what that lesson is?”
And the student replies:
“My mind controls my reality.”
And therein lies your lesson of the day, cully:
Your world within creates your world without.
If inside, your world is filled with scarcity and fear and lack, then your reality will also be filled with scarcity and fear and lack.
But if your world inside is filled with abundance and courage and surplus, then it follows that your reality will also be filled with abundance and courage and surplus.
This is the fundamental belief that separates the winners from the losers, especially in the long run, and especially in the world of business.
You face endless obstacles in the game of business and life. Each obstacle can obliterate you and everything you’ve worked for, if you let it.
But the mind has a way of creating problems that aren’t there too.
And without realizing that your mind controls your reality, you’ll be a passenger to your mind’s destruction of everything you loved, up to and including your business.
For example:
In the typical evolution of an entrepreneur, as your business grows, it requires you to relinquish your control over it. Failure to do this turns you into a micromanager that spreads your fear to your team and prevents them from moving your business to new heights. This gives your mind free reign to create “fires” in your business to justify your existence in it.
But these fires would not be created without you.
In other words, these fires are not real problems that afflict your business. They’re a problem, a virus that infects your mind—and can take your business down with it as a result.
But if you fix your “software,” the grey matter that lives between the six inches of your ears, and realize that your mind creates your reality, then, well, every problem will have a solution. And your newfound awareness keys you in on problems that arise and manifest within yourself.
Moral of the story?
Whether you believe it or not, your mind does create your reality.
Might as well use it for your success instead of your sabotage, eh?
Onto business:
One way to practice abundance is by proving to yourself that you’re worth it.
Which, in the case of these daily-ish email musings, means this:
Investing in yourself and your business. Hit reply if you’re ready.
Your investment won’t be cheap—but it will be profitable. That is, if we’re a good fit and if I’m confident that a better email marketing strategy and implementation of such strategy is the best solution to growing your business with fewer frustrations and headaches than you have right now.
(Take it from me who just conquered a particularly brutal strain of the flu.)
John
Comments