Brian _'s List: Personal Development

Alignment comes down to working on these four questions until they all produce the same answer:



• What do you want to do? (desire)
• What can you do? (ability)
• What should you do? (purpose)
• What must you do? (need)



When these four areas are aligned, motivation occurs automatically.

Once you start feeling that positive tension in your body, stop and ask yourself this question:

What can I do right now to make this goal a reality?

As you ask this question, hold the expectation that the answer will be something simple that can be done in 30 minutes or less.

Whatever reasonable answer pops into your head, accept it and act on it immediately.  At this point you should find it very easy to take action — it would be harder to procrastinate.

Now you’ve caught the energy wave.  The next trick is to ride it as far as you can before it eventually dissipates.

Get that simple task done as quickly as you can.

But if you don’t know what to do next, that’s no problem.  Just stop again and ask yourself:

What can I do right now to make this goal a reality?

What happens when people put out conflicting intentions, like two people intending to get the same promotion when only one position is available?

Since you’re the only intender, this is entirely an internal conflict — within YOU.  You’re holding the thought (the intention) for both people to want the same position.  But you’re also thinking (intending) that only one can get it.  So you’re intending competition.  This whole situation is your creation.  You believe in competition, so that’s what you manifest.

If I intend for my relationship to improve, but my spouse doesn’t seem to care, what will happen?

This is another example of intending conflict.  You’re projecting one intention for your avatar and one for your spouse, so the actual unified intention is that of conflict.  Hence the result you experience, subject to the influence of your higher order beliefs, will be to experience conflict with your spouse.  If your thoughts are conflicted, your reality is conflicted.

Sexual Awareness




Your personal experience of sexuality depends on the awareness you bring to it. If your thoughts are rooted in fear and scarcity, your sex life will reflect that. If your thoughts are centered in love and abundance, your sex life will reflect that as well.




I’ve spent a lot of time this month hanging out in Las Vegas with polyamorous people. These are people who enjoy having sex with multiple partners quite often.




I found it absolutely fascinating to learn from them. One conversation lasted nearly eight hours without a break, from 8:30pm until 4:15am. The time just flew by because I was so enthralled. I left their hotel feeling so energized that it was hard to fall asleep afterwards.




Here are some of the common patterns I noticed about them:





1. They believe sex is a giving act; inviting someone to have sex is like giving someone a special gift.
2. They take pleasure in giving pleasure to their partners.
3. They enjoy having sex and see it as a fun thing to do; sex is play.
4. They easily attract willing partners who feel the same as they do.
5. They embrace their sexuality and aren’t embarrassed by it; this makes you feel the same about your own sexuality in their presence.
6. They accept themselves as they are, warts and all; they feel good about their bodies, regardless of how well they live up to society’s standards of physical beauty.
7. They see themselves as being worthy of sexual abundance; some can offer specific reasons for this, like knowing they can create massive pleasure for their partners.
8. They enjoy the variety of having sex with multiple partners; their partners enjoy it too.
9. Everything is 100% consensual; no one is pressured to do anything they aren’t comfortable with.
10. They’re pretty darned happy about their lives; they laughed a lot!

Within the first few minutes of conversation with someone they just met, these people can express sexual intent, and a positive response is anticipated and received. They regard sex as a gift they can offer and share with others, and this causes others to respond in kind. They don’t broadcast creepy vibes because they aren’t trying to take anything from anyone.

I noticed that such people also resist putting labels on their experiences. They didn’t quite resonate with polyamory or any other specific labels. Some of them invented their own labels; others preferred none at all. They allow their sex lives to flow dynamically instead of trying to force their experiences into a particular mold. This was especially eye-opening for me because I have a hard time coming up with good labels for what I’m doing. Now I can see that it’s folly to even try.

Does it bother you to know that if you totally opened up and shared your real self with the world, warts and all, that you’d attract some criticism, judgment, and condemnation? Would it bother you to discover that some of the harshest judgment might come from the very friends and family you keep right now?

I’ll be totally straight with you. If you open up and share your real self with the world, you will indeed be criticized for it. Some people will take issue with your very existence, as if you’re somehow a personal threat to them. But at the same time, you will invite new connections with the most honest, authentic, compatible people you could ever wish for. Believe me — that’s a very worthwhile trade off.

When you show the world a false front, the world responds with false acceptance. When you show the world your true self, you’ll receive both harsh judgment as well as genuine acceptance.

The former approach is worthless. The latter is absolutely awesome.

Consider that we’re all puzzle pieces in the larger body of humanity. We connect well with certain people on one side but not on all sides. We have some compatibility but never perfect compatibility. This is true even in a long-term committed relationship.

So the question is this: Should we hide our differences from each other and reveal only our commonalties, or should we expose our differences openly?

What would be left? Most likely we’d have a pretty generic self-help site. There would still be some decent articles, but I think you’ll agree that something precious would be lost. The spirit of my work would be totally absent.

However, if I actually ran a site like this, certain people might accept me more easily because they wouldn’t have as many reasons to reject me. They could more easily delude themselves into believing that we’re 100% compatible. But would they really like and accept me? Or would they merely accept the false image I projected?

When I share a part of my life that doesn’t resonate with you, there’s no need to go kittywompus and become judgmental. Simply do the best you can to accept our differences. You see… it’s our differences, not our sameness, that stimulate us to learn and grow. If you and I weren’t different, we’d learn nothing from our interactions. There’s no point in exploring the creative work of someone who agrees with you on everything; that would be a complete waste of your time. Our differences fuel our growth.

Accepting Your Imperfections

One of the key turning points in my life happened when I crashed and burned after becoming addicted to shoplifting. By disappointing everyone who knew me, I stopped worrying about what other people thought about me. I reached the point where I just assumed everyone’s opinion of me was negative. I felt like I’d been rejected by virtually everyone and that there was no one in my life I could really trust. I had to learn to accept myself in order to make it through those dark times, even though no one else seemed willing to do so. Otherwise I’d have totally given up on my life.

Being nonjudgmental is a step toward unconditional love. A good place to start on this path is to love and accept yourself. Stop beating yourself up for past mistakes. If you can’t love and accept yourself, you’ll have a hard time loving and accepting others, and vice versa.

Learning to accept myself as I am was a long and difficult process. The first step, however, was to realize that it was essentially a choice. I didn’t need to meet any special conditions, satisfy any prerequisites, or gain anyone’s approval. I could simply decide that I would accept myself no matter what. In the long run, this decision has made me very happy.

If friends decide to dump me as a result of the personal choices I’ve made, then at best I only had their conditional love and acceptance, so our friendship was never that deep to begin with. Consequently, I don’t feel that anything of value was truly lost. All that happened was that some inauthentic connections were revealed and released. This creates a space for more authentic connections to be formed. It also means that my future relationships can be more strongly aligned with truth and love than my old relationships that didn’t survive.

The road to misery is trying to satisfy other people’s expectations. Instead of trying to please others, decide to live congruently with your own ideals and values, and allow others the freedom to do the same. Some people will accuse you of being selfish for doing so, when in truth you’re performing one of the most important services this planet needs — demonstrating how to live honestly and authentically.

What would happen if you allowed your social self and your private self to become the same self? Why not allow your true self to shine as a beacon of openness and honesty?

Yes, this will require facing more rejection and judgment from false friends. But it will also open the door to the most honest, authentic connections with other human beings you can imagine.

Be Specific

Make your habits specific. Identify when, where, and how you’ll implement them. Leave nothing to chance.

Start With a 30-Day Trial

Use the 30-day trial approach to kick-start your new habit. This method has a high success rate and can be adapted for virtually any habit you’d like to install. (For details on how to do this, see the article 30 Days to Success.)

Eliminate Interference

Nuke any obstacles that may interfere with your new habit. Clear commitments from your schedule that would overlap the time you’ve allotted for your habit.

Notify other people that this time is sacred and that they do NOT have permission to disturb you at these times.

Make sure you have all the equipment and supplies you’ll need to implement your habit. You don’t want to start on Day 1 with lots of enthusiasm, only to discover you’re missing something important and can’t proceed.

Give yourself every advantage before you begin. Review the article Habit Change Is Like Chess to make sure you account for the early game, middle game, and endgame of habit change. Don’t fall into the trap of blitzing for Scholar’s Mate and putting yourself in a disadvantaged position from Day 1.

Identify Supporting Habits

Take time to identify any supporting habits that will support your main habit, thereby supporting your primary goal as well.

Commit Yourself Publicly

If you need some extra incentive to stick with your 30-day trial, get other people involved to help you. Commit to your new habit publicly. Put yourself on record, so it will be harder to wimp out.

Here are some other ideas for applying 30-day trials:



• Give up TV. Tape all your favorite shows and save them until the end of the trial. My whole family did this once, and it was very enlightening.
• Give up online forums, especially if you feel you’re becoming forum addicted. This will help break the addiction and give you a clearer sense of how participation actually benefits you (if at all). You can always catch up at the end of 30 days.
• Shower/bathe/shave every day. I know YOU don’t need this one, so please pass it along to someone who does.
• Meet someone new every day. Start up a conversation with a stranger.
• Go out every evening. Go somewhere different each time, and do something fun — this will be a memorable month.
• Spend 30 minutes cleaning up and organizing your home or office every day. That’s 15 hours total.
• List something new to sell on ebay every day. Purge some of that clutter.
• Ask someone new out on a date every day. Unless your success rate is below 3%, you’ll get at least one new date, maybe even meet your future spouse.
• If you’re already in a relationship, give your partner a massage every day. Or offer to alternate who gives the massage each day, so that’s 15 massages each.

• Give up cigarettes, soda, junk food, coffee, or other unhealthy addictions.
• Become an early riser.
• Write in your journal every day.
• Call a different family member, friend, or business contact every day.
• Make 25 sales calls every day to solicit new business. Professional speaker Mike Ferry did this five days a week for two years, even on days when he was giving seminars. He credits this habit with helping build his business to over $10 million in annual sales. If you make 1300 sales calls a year, you’re going to get some decent business no matter how bad your sales skills are. You can generalize this habit to any kind of marketing work, like building new links to your web site.
• Write a new blog entry every day.
• Read for an hour a day on a subject that interests you.
• Meditate every day.
• Learn a new vocabulary word every day.
• Go for a long walk every day.

Is the point of playing Pac-Man to get to the next level as quickly as you can? Not really. The point is to have fun.

Is the point of life to immediately jump to a state of infinite health, wealth, relationship nirvana, and spiritual bliss? Of course not. The point is to enjoy the progression through various lessons that help you develop and expand your consciousness.

If you stop resisting where you are, you’ll find that life becomes a beautiful thing, regardless of what level you’re currently experiencing. You can anticipate the next level while still having immense fun right where you are.

If you want to level up, you have to acknowledge the ghosts on your level. They may seem like bullies, obstacles, or dangers, but in truth their purpose is to make you a better player and to provide you with an interesting experience.

You can’t move forward in life by hating where you are.

Whenever you resist your reality, you deny your own creative power. You make yourself powerless to progress.

Shields Down

There’s no such thing as selective shielding. If you have to shield any part of yourself from being discovered and judged, you shield your entire being.

From Sorrow to Joy

When you share your shame with others, you transform your resistance into acceptance and your sorrow into joy. You learn that there’s a reason you had to endure certain experiences, even if they were self-inflicted. Your painful experiences can actually help you connect with other people on a deeper level than you imagined possible.

Be Willing to Fail

When we fall into the pattern of hiding our past failures, we set ourselves up for long-term stagnation. We have to be willing to say, “If I fail at this, it’s okay. I’m human. I don’t have to be perfect. I can fail and keep right on going.”

Failure isn’t something to be avoided. It’s a natural part of life. To resist failure is to resist life itself.

Failure is our greatest teacher. We learn a lot more from failure than we do from success.

What Are You Hiding?

No matter what you’re hiding, the odds are that someone else has already shared worse. If a hitman can speak publicly about the dozens of murders he’s committed, surely you can open up about your anorexia problem, your abusive relationship, or your Internet porn addiction. Others have already shared their stories on these topics, which enables them to help others with similar challenges. Why not you?

Come Out, Come Out, Wherever You Are

You don’t have to share your painful stories all at once. You can build up to this gently. Instead of trying to be authentic overnight, focus on becoming more authentic. Tell a story that would embarrass you a little, but it wouldn’t kill you to share it. Listen to the feedback you receive. Do you feel a sense of relief afterwards? Do you feel more connected to other people? Do you feel a little more open and free? Do you feel less stressed?

For every embarrassing story that you can’t imagine ever sharing publicly, just say to yourself, “I know this is an unnecessary block to love, but right now I lack the strength to let it go. However, I intend to become the kind of person who can eventually share this, thereby transforming my sorrow into joy.”

Be at peace.

they are busier thinking up excuses why they can’t do something, instead of trying to figure out how they can do it.

The man who isn’t constantly making important decisions in his life has no vision, and with no vision there aren’t strong goals, and without goals, there is no progress — only mediocrity at best.

When it comes to making an important decision, you should have no hesitation to get out a piece of paper and a pen, sit down with a cup of coffee, and spend however long it takes to work it out. It should be second nature.

What You Need To Do To Build Your Voice

Wherever you are, practice throughout the day.

To develop that support:





1. Sitting straight, place one hand on your belly and another behind your back opposite your hand on your belly.
2. Breath in, attempting to move both hands out as far as possible (it takes a lot of strength to get your hand on your back to move; don’t worry if it doesn’t). This is belly breathing. Notice how it feels; this is how you want to breath when you speak in order to use your full lung capacity and get the fullest, strongest, and richest sound.
3. Exhale quickly, but make no sound as you do so. Sound is an indication of tension.
4. Breath in again. Now, when you exhale, say the first letter of the alphabet.
5. Continue until you reach Z. As you progress through the alphabet, pretend that with each letter you are speaking to a target farther and farther away. Pause if you get lightheaded, and wait a few seconds before you go again. By the time you reach the end, you should be very loud and strong. If you’re still breathing right, you will be stronger than you could be breathing normally.

Remember, even if you think you’re shy or you’re not made out for the prolific life, that’s just your ego talking.

Your inner renegade is in there, waiting to be unleashed.