Better Networker Pro

Prophecy Letter

When you do this exercise correctly, it is like when you go to the gym and workout a muscle, that muscle must get used to getting uncomfortable, stretching itself, pushing itself, tearing itself in a good way, making itself stronger by every movement.

The same goes with your life in every area.  We all must choose the direction of our life, where we will focus on things and what we will strengthen throughout our lives.

I ask you all to be vulnerable with yourself, put down your guard, no ego’s, no doubts, no fears, no second guesses, only total self confidence on what you want your life to be!

If you truly want the life you desire and deserve to come true in 2010.  Now don’t get me wrong, a lot of you reading this have amazing lives, however we all want and desire more in our lives, so that is what I am talking about here. I need you to set some time by yourself.  Grab some music that makes you think, that makes your emotions come out, makes the true you, the inner core of whom you are, come to light and not hide in the shadows anymore.

As you are alone, if possible, go to a place with a view, or your favorite place to be.

Take your journal, not a bunch of scrap paper where you will lose this.  Something that will withhold.

As you get to your place, put your music in, put your journal and stuff down.  Close your eyes… let the music start…take 7 long deep breathes, inhaling and exhaling slowly and deeply and enjoying every breath going into your mouth and nose, traveling down your air tube and filling your lungs with life.

As you breathe, concentrate on the air circulating through your lungs, windpipes and mouth and nose…. Listen to the air move, to your heartbeat, focus only on your breathing… relax as you are doing this…. After the 7^th breath… relax…. Keep your eyes closed and let your mind travel and recap what 2009 was about for you.

Think of the things you accomplished, the life experiences you got to have. The growth you have had in your own life, the lives you have personally impacted through your actions and words.

Then I want you to think of the things you did not accomplish, ask yourself why it didn’t happen for you, maybe it was because you gave up or shifted courses, maybe it was because of outside circumstances we could not control, however be honest with yourself.  Think of your 2009 goals you said you would go after and didn’t for whatever reason.  You must know everyone does this… we all make goals and don’t accomplish all of them. We are only human friends…however, we must do, review and then Redo.

The only way to get better is to look at things we could of improved on, things you should or should not do when it comes to getting the life you want.

After this is done… I want you to continue to close your eyes… take a few deep breathes again…

Then say out loud to yourself a few incantations J These are powerful… some of you reading this wont do any of this which is sad… the reason the leaders of your company and other leaders in this world, Tony Robbins, Matthew ferry, many others have the life they want and desire is because we are willing to do what is necessary, not care what others may think of how it looks or feels, because once you embrace these few simple things, watch what happens to your life, I hope you do this exercise to the fullest, with passion and power.

I want you to stand up… move your hands around, move in a circle, rock back and forth, whatever get you pumped up…

Then say to yourself the following

Everyday, in every way… I am getting better and better,

Everyday, In every way…. I am getting Stronger and Stronger

Everyday, In Every way,… I am becoming a better leader..

Then insert whatever you desire in your life… do this for 10 mins… continue to say over and over and over and over again the simple things that you desire in this life in 2010.  Movement, emotion, power… grasp it all and do this… say it loud, don’t get distracted by who is around or what they think…. To have what others never will… You must be willing to do what others won’t!  Are you willing?

Then once you find your power… your inner source of who you are and what you desire and deserve.

Sit down and take your journal out…

Then write the following on the top of the page..

December 31^st, 2010

This is my life after the year of 2010, what an amazing year it has been for me… I am in awe of the things that have manifested in my life….(then you take it from there)

I want you to write in the following categories… at least one full paragraph of the following of what happened in your life this next year as it had gone and past and you write what you want…

These are the categories…

SPIRITUAL

HEALTH

MENTAL / EMOTIONAL

FAMILY

RELATIONSHIP WITH SIGNIFICANT OTHER

FINANCIAL

BUSINESS

CONTRIBUTION

SOCIAL

RECREATIONAL

WRITE WHAT IS GOING TO HAPPEN IN YOUR LIFE, THEN SHARE IT WITH SOMEONE YOU TRUST… IT DOES NO GOOD TO MAKE THIS AND NOT SHARE IT WITH SOMEONE YOU TRUST TO KEEP YOU ACCOUNTABLE ON WHAT IS ABOUT TO HAPPEN IN YOUR LIFE.

Make a copy of your letter, laminate it and Read it DAILY!

GOD BLESS YOU ALL… I LOOK FORWARD TO SEEING YOU GET WHAT YOU WANT, DESIRE AND DESERVE IN 2010.  HAPPY NEW YEAR!

TO YOUR MASSIVE SUCCESS IN 2010,

I APPRECIATE YOU ALL.

YOUR FRIEND,

DEFINITNESS OF PURPOSE

ESTABLISHING YOUR BACKBONE

Most People wander through life with no real sense of why or what it is that they are here for. Because of this, happiness is a far off and distant place to them. Many leave this earth with no real sense of accomplishment other than their offspring. Searching this out is an emotional and extremely DEEP process. This journey for most is one that is never taken due to those reasons. It is much easier to never begin to investigate, to never step out into vulnerability, to never get hurt, and also… to never make an impact on people’s lives. Do you want to make an impact? It is critical that you begin to search out what your “Life’s Purpose” truly is.

Exercise:

1.) Take a few minutes to think about what your “Life’s Purpose” truly is and write it down. Be as definite as possible.

2.) Why do you believe this is your “Life Purpose?”

3.) What events in your past have occurred to reinforce this belief?

MEANING

What is really worthwhile?

To know what gives your life meaning is to know happiness on an intimate level. In the grand scope of life, there are a few things that will have true meaning for you. It is imperative to search these out and build your life around them. What do you love? What makes you proud? What do you stand for? What drives you everyday? These are a few the questions that can bring forth answers noteworthy of your attention for years to come.

Exercise:

1.) What do you value most in life?

a.

b.

c.

d.

e.

2.) Why do you value each of these

a.

b.

c.

d.

e.

FAITH

Visualization of, and Belief in, Attainment of Desire

Faith is the head chemist of the mind. When faith is blended with thought, the subconscious mind instantly picks up the vibration, translates it into its spiritual equivalent, and transmits it to INFINITE INTELLIGENCE, as in case of prayer. Faith is the “external elixir” that gives life, power, and action to the impulse of thought. It is the starting point of all accumulation of riches and the basis of all mysteries that cannot be analyzed by the rules of science. Faith is the believing of things you cannot see, however, you know they are real! Faith is the only known antidote for failure! It is also the only agency through which force of the Infinite Intelligence can be harnessed and used by man.

HOW TO DEVELOP FAITH…

Faith is the state of mind that may be induced, or created, by affirmation or repeated instructions to the subconscious mind, through the principal of autosuggestion. By following the suggestions laid down in the chapters of autosuggestion mind, you may convince the subconscious mind that you believe you will receive that for which you ask, and it will act upon belief, which your subconscious mind passes back to you in the form of faith, followed by definite plans for procuring that which you desire.

One key step to building faith is self-confidence. Without self-confidence (faith in yourself) it will be extremely difficult to acquire riches.

Faith of a Leader

Leaders have the following characteristics

Commitment – To Become a Leader– We must be committed.

Enthusiasm – We must be Enthusiastic – BE – DO – HAVE…. It is contagious

Adventurous – Live life a little – JUST GO FOR IT

Passion and Heart – Passion is the undying love for accomplishing something you put your mind to. Heart is caring for others and showing them that from you actions. Having a Servant’s Heart

Overcoming Adversity – Focus on the positive of everything. If you get knocked down – GET UP

Courage – Courage is Fear that has said its Prayers. Don’t let fear paralyze you from your dreams!

Sacrifice – The willingness to delay your personal gratification and do whatever it takes with integrity to ensure you make your goals and the goals of your team a reality. Put the things you don’t need to do on the back burner for a few months to have laser focus. Is it worth it?

I came across this video at a personal development seminar I went to awhile ago.  It is amazing what happens to peoples countenance when you validate them.  I dare you to try it and see what happens.  I saw this in action when after the seminar the people I was with went out and started validating people they ran into.  The first person we came across was a waitress.  And someone started validating them and I was just amazed at how the waitress changed her attitude towards us.  She made sure everyone had their drink full, and the food came out promptly.  It is amazing what a few simple words can do.  So go out there and validate someone!!

To your Massive Success

This article was written by Steve Pavlina at www.stevepavlina.com. go check out his site and get his book.. He has some amazing content on personal developement..

Do you live on a fixed income, earning the same amount of money paycheck after paycheck? Maybe you pick up a cost of living adjustment or a raise now and then (or suffer a pay cut or reduction in hours), but barring any major changes like getting promoted, fired, or laid off, is your income fairly stable and predictable? Do you have a good sense of what you’re going to earn during the next 3 months? Would it be exceedingly unlikely for you to earn double or triple – or half – of that anticipated amount?

If this describes you, then who decided to fixify your income? Who made that decision?

You made that decision, didn’t you? You decided to earn a fixed amount of money per month. You can trace your decisions back to some moment where you said yes to a fixed income.

Are you aware that saying yes was entirely optional? In fact, if you give it some thought (which I’ll encourage you to do in this article), you should be able to see that accepting a fixed income is a rather stupid choice, all things considered. A fixed income is a sucker bet.

How is that choice working out for you so far? Are you blissfully delighted with it? Do you like knowing that you’ll earn the same amount of money month after month? Does it feel comforting to know how much you’re going to make? Or is there some part of you that’s bored and frustrated beyond recognition?

Do you like the stability of it? Is it truly stable, or is your feeling of security rooted in a hopeful illusion? If some individual can decide to turn off your income with the words “You’re fired,” it’s hardly stable. If that’s your situation, it’s safe to say your income is unstable and conditional rather than stable and secure. We can say that all income is conditional, but how stable are those conditions? Does someone else wield the power to turn off your income?

For the sake of argument, let’s assume that your income seems reasonably stable, secure, and predictable. Perhaps you work in a high-demand field, and you’re really good at what you do, so even if you lost your current job, you could quickly find a new one doing similar work for similar pay. That may be a stretch for some, but for the sake of this article, we don’t even need to pluck that low-hanging fruit. There are plenty of other cuts awaiting a splash of lemon juice.

Downsides of a Fixed Income

Aside from its predictability and possible stability, virtually everything else about a fixed income is negative.

First off, a fixed income lacks flexibility. It cannot adapt well to changing circumstances. This means that fixed incomes can get pummeled in a variety of ways.

If expenses rise unexpectedly and surpass your monthly income, then you have no choice but to draw money from cash reserves or investments or go into debt. If your expenses later return to normal, this debt may be temporary, but you’ll still end up paying extra interest or losing interest on your depleted savings/investments, which takes money out of your pocket.

If you spend more, you can’t simply earn more to compensate. This turns unexpected expenses into threats. They become something you relate to with fear or worry about. What if the car breaks down? What if someone gets sick? What if prices go up? Such events are just part of life. It makes no sense to fear the inevitable. Stuff is going to break, including expensive stuff that costs a lot to repair or replace. If getting an unexpected bill stresses you out, your mindset is a mismatch for reality.

If expenses rise above net income for too long, you can sink into debt for a long time and waste a great deal of money paying interest to someone else. Many people remain stuck there till they die. If their fixed incomes are too close to their expenses, taxes, and debt payments, then getting out of debt becomes hopeless. Hope can only be restored by focusing on the income side.

For this reason, people on fixed incomes often spend an inordinate amount of time fussing over their expenses. Otherwise they may risk depleting their savings or going into debt. They want to fulfill their desires, but their income limits their ability to do that.

“I can’t afford it” is practically a mantra for fixed income people. They sacrifice their true desires in order to stick to their budgets, totally oblivious to the fact that no one is forcing them to waste their lives on expense-tracking tedium. If they desire something with a price tag, but they can’t afford it, they rule it out as impossible for them – as if their fixed income is the final arbiter of their desires. Eventually resentment builds. They start resenting the unfairness of the economy, of people who set the prices, of business in general, of money, and so on. The bad guy is somewhere out there. Nope… the bad guy is the stupid choice you made to fixify your income. Wise up and stop doing that to yourself.

People look really pathetic when they act financially helpless. This isn’t how human beings should relate to themselves.

“Hi, there’s something I really want. Actually, it feels like the perfect match for me, but I just can’t afford it because I’m on a fixed income. Help me! Can you give me a price break or something? I really, really want it!”

“How about if you give me a break and stop pretending to be helpless?”

“No, you don’t understand. I’m on a tight budget. I really can’t afford to pay full price.”

“Now you’re just making yourself look foolish. Who fixified your income in the first place? You did! Why are you putting the onus on me to work within the limits you created for yourself? You’re asking me to fit an elephant inside a breadbox. Why don’t you raise your limits? Raise them high enough to be well beyond your desires, so you can easily afford whatever you want.”

“I can do that?”

“Yes, you’ve always been free to do that.”

“Well, I dunno about that. I don’t think my boss will give me more money.”

“Screw your boss then. Why do you want a boss anyway?”

“But that would mean making major changes in my life.”

“Yes, it would.”

“I don’t think I’m ready for that. It’s too risky.”

“There’s no additional risk because you’ve already lost the connection to your desires. You’re already stuck in a situation where you aren’t experiencing what you truly want. Life doesn’t get any worse than that. To do nothing ensures a continuation of the worst possible outcome – being perpetually unfulfilled.”

“But it could get worse. I could be even more unhappy.”

“If you do nothing, it will indeed get worse. That’s a given. Your desires will slip further and further away as you disconnect from your heart even more. Life doesn’t get any worse than that. The only hope lies on the path of change.”

“So it’s to be torture then?”

“Yes, until it kills you.”

“I can cope with torture.”

“Suit yourself.”

“So how about that price break?”

“Fezzik, tear his arms off.”

Foolishly Guarding Fool’s Gold

It’s funny how people strive to protect that which is worthless. The state of being unhappy and unfulfilled is worth absolutely nothing. If that’s where you find yourself, you’re already at rock bottom.

You may think that you’ll have to risk some of your stuff (possessions, money, etc) to make big changes in your life. That may be true, but if you aren’t happy right now, then all of that stuff is of zero value to you anyway. If you try to maintain your stuff at the expense of your happiness and fulfillment, then you are indeed a complete idiot. You’re trying to sell your very soul, aren’t you? You’re entering into an agreement that says, “I agree to be perpetually unhappy and unfulfilled in exchange for cash and goods worth $X.” Add up the value of all the stuff you believe you’d have to risk to make big changes. Does that value of X make this agreement a wise choice?

Risk the stuff. It’s worthless anyway. But don’t make the insane choice of sacrificing your happiness for stuff.

Switching to a Variable Income

Earning a variable income, where you have the flexibility to earn a different sum of money each month, has a lot more to do with mindset than anything else. It doesn’t matter if you have a job, run your own business, or enjoy multiple streams of income. Those are just different vehicles.

The key is to recognize who determines your income. You do. You may have financial and economic realities to deal with, but ultimately you set the prices for what your time and efforts are worth financially, you decide what skills to develop and what kind of training to undertake, and you determine what kind of value to create and deliver to people. The most powerful choices are under your control.

If you deliver pizza for a living, you can expect to be paid for that particular skill based on its market value. Pizza delivery guys are easily trained and replaced, so you can expect to earn very little from such a job. Don’t blame the job for what it pays. No one is forcing you to choose a low-paying, unskilled job. If you try to squeeze more money from a job than the job is worth in the larger marketplace, eventually your boss or customers will figure out that you’re being overpaid, and you’ll be replaced by someone cheaper.

On the other hand, maybe you want to inspire and motivate people for a living. This takes a lot more skill than delivering pizzas, but it’s in much higher demand relative to the supply. In general, people are willing to pay a lot more to be inspired and motivated than they’re willing to pay for a hot pizza (unless you live in Naples). If you develop a high ability to inspire and motivate people, and you build the means to deliver your value to a sizeable number of people, you can eventually earn more in an hour than the pizza guy earns in month.

You not only have the ability to develop your skills within a particular field, but you can also switch fields repeatedly. If you want to earn more, then keep building skills and changing up how you combine and express those skills to maximize the value you’re able to create and deliver, thereby maximizing the income you’re able to generate. The opportunities to do this are endless as long as you remain flexible and alert.

Your income is not fixed unless you decide to fixify it. It doesn’t matter if you’re getting checks from the government as your only income source. Those checks may not increase in size, but they aren’t the only checks you’re capable of earning. If you don’t like the size of those checks, go out and earn different checks.

A Fixed Income Is a Sucker Bet

Take note that while you’re receiving a fixed income, someone higher up the chain of command is enjoying a variable income at your expense. When you receive a fixed income, you’re actually creating a variable amount of value, but the income generated by your excess value is being siphoned off to line someone else’s pockets. They’re profiting from your ignorance. How generous of you! It may seem like they’re taking on more risk, but keep in mind that if they go down, you go down too. You share in the risk, but you don’t share in the upside. You do realize you’re giving away the farm here, don’t you?

If you’re going to work, then why not receive and enjoy the fruits of your labor instead of giving most of your earnings away before you even see them? You’re already creating value, aren’t you? If you want to be generous, consider giving some of your excess value away to charity. I donate some money each month because it feels good to do so. But I donate to non-profits and charities that spend their money on things I want to support, not to stock-holding officers or investors who are already making millions a year.

Stop pretending to be helpless when it comes to how much money you make. Your paycheck has no power over you – except to the degree you give your power away. You may be working in a system where the higher ups have every financial incentive to keep you powerless so they can keep siphoning the value you’re creating, but ultimately you’re the one who chooses to walk through that door each day. You don’t have to keep doing that. You can get up and leave right this minute if you want. Many people are much happier for having done that.

You are the final arbiter of your desires. If you want something with a price tag, you have the power to earn the money to pay for it. You decide how much you earn. You decide how much you spend.

When you realize that you choose your income, you can focus your energies on creating and delivering as much value as it takes to earn whatever you want. Be intelligent and deliberate about it. Make abundance a priority in your life. This is a lot more fun than fussing over expenses and nitpicking your taxes. Once you develop a modicum of skill, you’ll find that it’s a lot more fun to earn an extra $10K than to save $10K. You can earn $10K in an hour if you develop the mindset and skills to do so. No one is stopping you from doing that.

Stop Fussing Over Expenses and Taxes

When it comes to reducing your expenses and taxes, you have to do a lot of tedious work. It’s not fun, at least not for any sane person I’ve met. Yet people with a scarcity mindset spend a lot more time nitpicking their expenses and taxes than they invest in boosting their income. Not a good trade off… not by a long shot.

When you try to minimize your expenses and taxes, you’ll eventually reach the point of having to make tough calls that could reduce your quality of life. On the expenses side, you may have to do extra expense tracking and budgeting, which takes time. Or you may begin to sacrifice quality to save a few bucks on your purchases.

On the tax side, you’ll have to fill out more paperwork and do more accounting to take advantage of more deductions and save more money. Is that really what you want to spend your precious life doing?

Consider that when it comes to expenses and taxes, you have a hard limit of $0 and can go no lower. Once you’re spending the bare minimum, that’s it – you’re done. So your maximum ideal gain is to spend nothing at all. And even if you could take things that far, your quality of life will surely suffer. You’ll be wasting so much time going out of your way just to save a few extra dollars here and there. Sacrifice and scarcity will be your constant companions. That’s no way to live.

In the long run, it’s much more productive to focus your time and energy – not to mention your precious life – on the side of generating more income. You have no hard limit on that side. For all practical purposes, the sky is the limit. With commitment and persistence, you can boost your income by many multiples of what you might save on the expense and tax side.

Working on the income side is a lot more fun to boot. You get to spend your time creating value and receiving money with gratitude instead of worrying about whether or not you can afford to splurge on organic produce.

For my taxes, I pay an accountant to do all the paperwork for me. That costs extra money, but I don’t worry about it. I also procrastinate endlessly when it comes to doing any sort of accounting work. I do the bare minimum I can. I keep everything in good order, but I don’t balance the accounts very often. At tax time I let my accountant work his magic to figure out the best deductions for me, but if I have to do extra work that I don’t want to do just to save a little more money, I simply decline. That way I get to spend more time on the value creation and delivery side, not to to mention the enjoyment of life side. The pay is much better on that side, both financially and emotionally.

Last year my accountant told me I could save more money by deducting the business use of my car. All I’d have to do would be to keep track of mileage when I drive my car for business reasons. There may have been some other ways to claim this deduction, but they still required me to do more tracking, analysis, and/or paperwork. That seemed like a stupid waste of life, so I told my accountant to skip that deduction – not worth it to me. I’m not going to waste more time on stuff I don’t enjoy just so I can save an extra thousand dollars on my taxes. The IRS will surely have no trouble taking the extra money, and I’m happy to spend my time doing more of what I enjoy, which will easily enable me to earn enough money to cover that missed deduction many times over. I’d actually lose money if I tried to take that deduction. It’s yet another sucker bet for those who choose to live in scarcity.

When it comes to my expenses, I don’t maintain any sort of budget, either on the business side or personal side. Budgeting is boring to me, so I don’t do it. I simply spend whatever I feel like spending. When my expenses rise, expectedly or unexpectedly, I don’t worry about it. I don’t have to worry. I know that if I begin to overspend, I can always restore balance by over-earning just as easily.

Earning money is fun. Spending money is fun. Both activities are interchangeable. Fussing over expenses and taxes isn’t remotely fun, so that isn’t part of the equation – that kind of stuff gets triaged.

My latest credit card bill for my business is $1010, which is on the low side. Most of it is stuff that gets auto-billed each month. I was too busy earning money that month and didn’t have as much time to spend money. The bill before that was $6900. Ah yes, the Bermuda conference. I had a lot of fun spending money that month. The bill before that was somewhere in between. My personal credit card bills fluctuate similarly. Every month I pay off every balance completely, so there’s no revolving balance and no interest charges.

I “waste” money on unnecessary expenses all the time. I overspend on little things. I don’t fuss over trying to save money. I assume that whatever I can spend, I can earn. That wasn’t always the case though – it took years to train up to the level where I could earn enough to cover my desires.

Years ago I had a friend who absolutely hated waiting in line. He saw it as a personal insult. He used to say that all stores and restaurants should have a separate cashier for people who are willing to pay 50% more, just so they’ll never have to wait in line. I thought he was nuts at the time, but he was simply trying to maximize the value he got from life. Waiting in life sucked too much value away.

I really don’t know how much money I earn each month because I only look into it a couple times a year. It’s just video game gold anyway – doesn’t really matter what the exact figures are. I have a general feel/vibe for how the cash is flowing week by week, and in terms of spending I do my best to go with the flow. Is my bank account growing or shrinking? I like to see the numbers keep growing. I check my account balances a couple times a week to take their pulse. I earn money from multiple sources pretty much every day, so my checking account is perpetually refilling itself, but I want to make sure there are no big surprises like fraudulent charges. Some months it’s hard for me to guess what I actually earned within +/- $5K. I simply don’t care to keep track. It’s somewhere in the tens of thousands each month, more than enough to live off.

I do the same with my book. I have no idea how many copies it’s sold. Can’t even fathom a guess within +/- 5K copies. I haven’t asked my publisher for a sales update this whole year. It’s great that we’re up to a dozen languages for translated versions, but as for the money and sales, I don’t really care. I’ll sort it out when the royalty statements start coming. It will be more fun to be surprised.

Even though this may sound financially irresponsible, I think it’s just the opposite. My bills always get paid. I’m paying down my mortgage much faster than necessary. My car is 100% paid for. I’m sharing this with you because it actually works, even though it may sound counter-intuitive.

Managing your finances in real life – the fun way – is very much like earning gold in a computer role-playing game. Earning money is play. Spending money is also play. If you aren’t having fun, you’re missing the whole point.

I think it’s truly irresponsible to waste your precious life on things you don’t enjoy, like fussing over your expenses or taxes. Does it feel good to you to sacrifice quality of life to keep a tight grip on your finances, when you could be making plenty of money if you simply spent more time doing what you love and providing value for others? Would you rather do something creative and have plenty of money to splash around, or spend your time dealing with cheap items that keep breaking down? I think you deserve the best that life has to offer you, but you have to step up and claim it. No one is stopping you from doing that.

Cash Reserves

Suze Orman recommends maintaining a short-term cash reserve (not counting long-term investments) equivalent to about 6 months of expenses. I think that’s a wise idea. A decent cash reserve gives you a lot more flexibility, whether your income is fixed or variable.

I maintain a liquid cash reserve at all times to have a cushion for any unforeseen expenses. I like to see that reserve be at least $50K, preferably closer to $100K. That way if something unexpected happens like a wacko filing a frivolous lawsuit because he spilled boiling water on himself while attempting my brown rice recipe… or crashed his car while attempting to drive after a week on polyphasic sleep, I can easily afford a decent hitman.

When your income source is fairly vulnerable, like if you could get laid off or fired and spend a lot of time out of work, you may want to maintain a bigger cash reserve. But when you assert more control over your income and maintain more options for responding to financial setbacks, you don’t need as big a reserve.

If you have multiple streams of mostly passive income, and if it would take a major upheaval to threaten those sources even if you stopped working for a while, you may be fine with a 2-month cash reserve or less. If I suddenly need more cash, I have lots of options that could easily be implemented in less than 60 days. I could do another joint-venture promotion. I could create and sell an info product. I could do another book deal and get an advance. Even so, when I focus on feeling abundant, I naturally attract a bigger reserve than I need.

Cash reserves are useful because there’s a lag between creating and delivering value and receiving income from it. Some income sources have low lag time. For example, when someone registers for my workshop and pays by credit card or PayPal, the money is in my bank account within a few days. Some sources pay monthly, such as affiliate deals. Others pay quarterly, semi-annually, or less frequently, like book royalties. Some pay “whenever.” A cash reserve helps to smooth out fluctuations. It also keeps you from incurring stupid bank fees from bouncing checks. Having a bank balance that’s too low can lead to a lot of time wasted as well as unnecessary stress.

How do you build a cash reserve? You can get there by skimping on expenses, but that gets really tedious and boring after a while, so I don’t recommend it. Focus on creating more value, training up your value-creating skills, and building a bigger client base for whatever service you provide. It all comes down to getting better at creating and delivering value.

I certainly didn’t make sacrifices to build a cash reserve. I just kept doing what I enjoyed. I stayed alert for new ways to express and deliver value to people. Sometimes it was as simple as asking, “What else can I write about that could help people in some way?” I didn’t have to focus on earning money. When you get good at creating and delivering value, money finds its way to you.

Luck or Choice?

Why do I find myself in this “lucky” situation where I get to do what I want, earn what I want, and spend what I want? If you think luck had anything to do with this, you’re crazy, deluded, and otherwise insane. This happened by choice. I created this career and financial situation deliberately. It wasn’t easy to figure out how all the pieces would fit together – it took years – but it was definitely worth it.

How long it takes you to hit your desired financial stride is irrelevant since the time is going to pass anyway. You can spend that time creating the life you desire, or you can stay stuck with something you don’t want. You might as well work toward what you desire, unless you want sacrifice and scarcity to accompany you all the way to the grave.

Recognize that a fixed income is a sucker bet. It’s like drinking soda. It doesn’t matter that lots of people do it – that doesn’t make it any less dumb. There’s no good reason to sacrifice yourself to line someone else’s pockets. Don’t be a sucker.

You’re free to opt out of the fixed income sucker bet whenever you want. When you do this, rest assured that the other suckers in your life will bark at you for pouring lemon juice on their cuts, and the higher ups won’t appreciate that you saw through their scheme. But you’ll be free to decide how much you earn. You’ll be able to write your own paycheck, not with airy-fairy wishful thinking but with a commitment to creating and delivering the best value you can, regardless of how you choose to express yourself.

Of course having a variable income isn’t all fun and roses. It takes time to get the hang of it and to get a good feel for how to balance the flow of earning and spending. It took me about 5 years before I achieved basic competence with it. I made tons of mistakes during that time, but I learned from them. After that it was pretty easy to maintain stability.

If you pursue this path, maybe you can figure it out in 2 years. Maybe it will take 10. Again, the time is going to pass anyway. If you drop the fixed income mindset, you’ll end up in a pretty sweet place once you eventually figure it out.

As you probably noticed, I made up some words in this article. You’re free to coinify your own words too. This is your reality after all. You make the rules. Just as you can subscribe to other people’s verbal patterns, you can also subscribe to other people’s income patterns. But you don’t have to. You never did have to. Just because a pattern is popular doesn’t mean it’s the best pattern for you. Give that some thoughtification.

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Security is mostly a superstition. It does not exist in nature,
nor do the children of men as a whole experience it.
Avoiding danger is no safer in the long run than outright exposure.
Life is either a daring adventure, or nothing.
To keep our faces toward change and behave like free spirits
in the presence of fate is strength undefeatable.
- Helen Keller

In our day-to-day lives, the virtue of courage doesn’t receive much attention. Courage is a quality reserved for soldiers, firefighters, and activists. Security is what matters most today. Perhaps you were taught to avoid being too bold or too brave. It’s too dangerous. Don’t take unnecessary risks. Don’t draw attention to yourself in public. Follow family traditions. Don’t talk to strangers. Keep an eye out for suspicious people. Stay safe.

But a side effect of overemphasizing the importance of personal security in your life is that it can cause you to live reactively. Instead of setting your own goals, making plans to achieve them, and going after them with gusto, you play it safe. Keep working at the stable job, even though it doesn’t fulfill you. Remain in the unsatisfying relationship, even though you feel dead inside compared to the passion you once had. Who are you to think that you can buck the system? Accept your lot in life, and make the best of it. Go with the flow, and don’t rock the boat. Your only hope is that the currents of life will pull you in a favorable direction.

No doubt there exist real dangers in life you must avoid. But there’s a huge gulf between recklessness and courage. I’m not referring to the heroic courage required to risk your life to save someone from a burning building. By courage I mean the ability to face down those imaginary fears and reclaim the far more powerful life that you’ve denied yourself. Fear of failure. Fear of rejection. Fear of going broke. Fear of being alone. Fear of humiliation. Fear of public speaking. Fear of being ostracized by family and friends. Fear of physical discomfort. Fear of regret. Fear of success.

How many of these fears are holding you back? How would you live if you had no fear at all? You’d still have your intelligence and common sense to safely navigate around any real dangers, but without feeling the emotion of fear, would you be more willing to take risks, especially when the worst case wouldn’t actually hurt you at all? Would you speak up more often, talk to more strangers, ask for more sales, dive headlong into those ambitious projects you’ve been dreaming about? What if you even learned to enjoy the things you currently fear? What kind of difference would that make in your life?

Have you previously convinced yourself that you aren’t really afraid of anything… that there are always good and logical reasons why you don’t do certain things? It would be rude to introduce yourself to a stranger. You shouldn’t attempt public speaking because you don’t have anything to say. Asking for a raise would be improper because you’re supposed to wait until the next formal review. They’re just rationalizations though – think about how your life would change if you could confidently and courageously do these things with no fear at all.

What Is Courage?

Courage is not the absence of fear, but rather the judgment that something else is more important than fear.
- Ambrose Redmoon

Courage is resistance to fear, mastery of fear – not absence of fear.
- Mark Twain

Courage is being scared to death, but saddling up anyway.
- John Wayne

I like the definitions of courage above, which all suggest that courage is the ability to get yourself to take action in spite of fear. The word courage derives from the Latin cor, which means “heart.” But true courage is more a matter of intellect than of feeling. It requires using the uniquely human part of your brain (the neocortex) to wrest control away from the emotional limbic brain you share in common with other mammals. Your limbic brain signals danger, but your neocortex reasons that the danger isn’t real, so you simply feel the fear and take action anyway. The more you learn to act in spite of fear, the more human you become. The more you follow the fear, the more you live like a lower mammal. So the question, “Are you a man or a mouse?” is consistent with human neurology.

Courageous people are still afraid, but they don’t let the fear paralyze them. People who lack courage will give into fear more often than not, which actually has the long-term effect of strengthening the fear. When you avoid facing a fear and then feel relieved that you escaped it, this acts as a psychological reward that reinforces the mouse-like avoidance behavior, making you even more likely to avoid facing the fear in the future. So the more you avoid asking someone out on a date, the more paralyzed you’ll feel about taking such actions in the future. You are literally conditioning yourself to become more timid and mouse-like.

Such avoidance behavior causes stagnation in the long run. As you get older, you reinforce your fear reactions to the point where it’s hard to even imagine yourself standing up to your fears. You begin taking your fears for granted; they become real to you. You cocoon yourself into a life that insulates you from all these fears: a stable but unhappy marriage, a job that doesn’t require you to take risks, an income that keeps you comfortable. Then you rationalize your behavior: You have a family to support and can’t take risks, you’re too old to shift careers, you can’t lose weight because you have “fat” genes. Five years… ten years… twenty years pass, and you realize that your life hasn’t changed all that much. You’ve settled down. All that’s really left now is to live out the remainder of your years as contently as possible and then settle yourself into the ground, where you’ll finally achieve total safety and security.

But there’s something else going on behind the scenes, isn’t there? That tiny voice in the back of your mind recalls that this isn’t the kind of life you wanted to live. It wants more, much more. It wants you to become far wealthier, to have an outstanding relationship, to get your body in peak physical condition, to learn new skills, to travel the world, to have lots of wonderful friends, to help people in need, to make a meaningful difference. That voice tells you that settling into a job where you sell widgets the rest of your life just won’t cut it. That voice frowns at you when you catch a glance of your oversized belly in the mirror or get winded going up a flight of stairs. It beams disappointment when it sees what’s become of your family. It tells you that the reason you have trouble motivating yourself is that you aren’t doing what you really ought to be doing with your life… because you’re afraid. And if you refuse to listen, it will always be there, nagging you about your mediocre results until you die, full of regrets for what might have been.

So how do you respond to this ornery voice that won’t shut up? What do you do when confronted by that gut feeling that something just isn’t right in your life? What’s your favorite way to silence it? Maybe drown it out by watching TV, listening to the radio, working long hours at an unfulfilling job, or consuming alcohol and caffeine and sugar.

But whenever you do this, you lower your level of consciousness. You sink closer towards an instinctive animal and move away from becoming a fully conscious human being. You react to life instead of proactively going after your goals. You fall into a state of learned helplessness, where you begin to believe that your goals are no longer possible or practical for you. You become more and more like a mouse, even trying to convince yourself that life as a mouse might not be so bad after all, since everyone around you seems to be OK with it. You surround yourself with your fellow mice, and on the rare occasions that you encounter a fully conscious human being, it scares the hell out of you to remember how much of your own courage has been lost.

Raise Your Consciousness

Life shrinks or expands in proportion to one’s courage.
- Anais Nin

Courage is the price that Life exacts for granting peace.
- Amelia Earhart

You gain strength, courage and confidence by every experience in which you really stop to look fear in the face. You are able to say to yourself, “I have lived through this horror. I can take the next thing that comes along.” You must do the thing you think you cannot do.
- Eleanor Roosevelt

The way out of this vicious cycle is to summon your courage and confront that inner voice. Find a place where you can be alone with pen and paper (or computer and keyboard). Listen to that voice, and face up to what it’s telling you, no matter how difficult it is to hear. (The voice is just an abstraction – you may not hear words at all; instead you may see what you should be doing or simply feel it emotionally. But I’ll continue to refer to the voice for the sake of example.) This voice may tell you that your marriage has been dead for ten years, and you’re refusing to face it because you’re afraid of divorce. It may tell you that you’re afraid that if you start your own business, you’ll probably fail, and that’s why you’re staying at a job that doesn’t challenge you to grow. It may tell you that you’ve given up trying to lose weight because you’ve failed at it so many times, and you’re addicted to food. It may tell you that the friends you’re hanging out with now are incongruent with the person you want to be, and that you need to leave that reference group behind and build a new one. It may tell you that you always wanted to be an actor or writer, but you settled for a sales job because it seemed more safe and secure. It may tell you that you always wanted to help people in need, but you aren’t doing so in the way you should. It may tell you that you’re wasting your talents.

See if you can reduce that voice to just a single word or two. What is it telling you to do? Leave. Quit. Speak. Write. Dance. Act. Exercise. Sell. Switch. Move on. Let go. Ask. Learn. Forgive. Whatever you get from this, write it down. Perhaps you even have different words for each area of your life.

Now you have to take the difficult step of consciously acknowledging that this is what you really want. It’s OK if you don’t think it’s possible for you. It’s OK if you don’t see how you could ever have it. But don’t deny that you want it. You lower your consciousness when you do that. When you look at your overweight body, admit that you really want to be fit and healthy. When you light up that next cigarette, don’t deny that you want to be a nonsmoker. When you meet the potential mate of your dreams, don’t deny that you’d love to be in a relationship with that person. When you meet a person who seems to be at total peace with herself, don’t deny that you crave that level of inner peace too. Get yourself out of denial. Move instead to a place where you admit, “I really do want this, but I just don’t feel I currently have the ability to get it.” It’s perfectly OK to want something that you don’t think you can have. And you’re almost certainly wrong in concluding that you can’t have it. But first, stop lying to yourself and pretending you don’t really want it.

Move From Fear to Action, Even if You Expect to Fail

When a resolute young fellow steps up to the great bully, the world, and takes him boldly by the beard, he is often surprised to find it comes off in his hand, and that it was only tied on to scare away the timid adventurers.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson

Most of our obstacles would melt away if, instead of cowering before them, we should make up our minds to walk boldly through them.
- Orison Swett Marden

Courage and perseverance have a magical talisman, before which difficulties disappear and obstacles vanish into air.
- John Quincy Adams

Now that you’ve acknowledged some things you’ve been afraid to face, how do you feel? You probably still feel paralyzed against taking action. That’s OK. While diving right in and confronting a fear head-on can be very effective, that may require more courage than you feel you can summon right now.

The most important point I want you to learn from this article is that real courage is a mental skill, not an emotional one. Neurologically it means using the thinking neocortex part of your brain to override the emotional limbic impulses. In other words, you use your human intelligence, logic, and independent will to overcome the limitations you’ve inherited as an emotional mammal.

Now this may make logical sense, but it’s far easier said than done. You may logically know you’re in no real danger if you get up on a stage and speak in front of 1000 people, but your fear kicks in anyway, and the imaginary threat prevents you from volunteering for anything like this. Or you may know you’re in a dead end job, but you can’t seem to bring yourself to say the words, “I quit.”

Courage, however, doesn’t require that you take drastic action in these situations. Courage is a learned mental skill that you must condition, just as weight training strengthens your muscles. You wouldn’t go into a gym for the first time and try to lift 300 pounds, so don’t think that to be courageous you must tackle your most paralyzing fear right away.

There are two methods I will suggest for building courage. The first approach is analogous to progressive weight training. Start with weights you can lift but which are challenging for you, and then progressively train up to heavier and heavier weights as you grow stronger. So tackle your smallest fears first, and progressively train up to bigger and bigger fears. Training yourself to lift 300 pounds isn’t so hard if you’ve already lifted 290. Similarly, speaking in front of an audience of 1000 people isn’t so tough once you’ve already spoken to 900.

So grab a piece of paper, and write down one of your fears that you’d like to overcome. Then number from one to ten, and write out ten variations of this fear, with number one being the least anxiety-producing and number ten being the most anxiety-producing. This is your fear hierarchy. For example, if you’re afraid of asking someone out on a date, then number one on your list might be going out to a public place and smiling at someone you find attractive (very mild fear). Number two might be smiling at ten attractive strangers in a single day. Number ten might be asking out your ideal date in front of all your mutual friends, when you’re almost certain you’ll be turned down flat and everyone in the room will laugh (extreme fear). Now start by setting a goal to complete number one on your list. Once you’ve had that success (and success in this case simply means taking action, regardless of the outcome), then move on to number two, and so on, until you’re ready to tackle number ten or you just don’t feel the fear is limiting you anymore. You may need to adjust the items on your list to make them practical for you to actually experience. And if you ever feel the next step is too big, then break it down into additional gradients. If you can lift 290 pounds but not 300, then try 295 or even 291. Take this process as gradually as you need to, such that the next step is a mild challenge for you but one you feel fairly confident you can complete. And feel free to repeat a past step multiple times if you find it helpful to prepare you for the next step. Pace yourself.

By following this progressive training process, you’ll accomplish two things. You’ll cease reinforcing the fear/avoidance response that you exhibited in the past. And you’ll condition yourself to act more courageously in future situations. So your feelings of fear will diminish at the same time that your expression of courage grows. Neurologically you’ll be weakening the limbic control over your actions while strengthening the neocortical control, gradually moving from unconscious mouse-like to conscious human-like behavior.

The second approach to building courage is to acquire additional knowledge and skill within the domain of your fear. Confronting fears head-on can be helpful, but if your fear is largely due to ignorance and lack of skill, then you can usually reduce or eliminate the fear with information and training. For example, if you’re afraid to quit your job and start your own business, even though you’d absolutely love to be in business for yourself, then start reading books and taking classes on how to start your own business. Spend an afternoon at your local library researching the subject, or do the research online. Join the local Chamber of Commerce and any relevant trade organizations in your field. Attend conferences. Build connections. Enlist the help of a mentor. Build your skill to the point where you start to feel confident that you could actually succeed, and this knowledge will help you act more boldly and courageously when you’re ready. This method is especially effective when a large part of your fear is due to the unknown. Often just reading a book or two on the subject will be enough to dispel the fear so that you’re able to take action.

These two methods are my personal favorites, but there are many additional ways to condition yourself to overcome fear, including neuro-linguistic programming, implosion therapy, systematic desensitization, and self-confrontation. You can research them via an online search engine if you wish to learn such methods and increase the number of fear-busting tools in your arsenal. Most of these can be easily self-administered (implosion therapy is the notable exception).

The exact process you use to build courage isn’t important. What’s important is that you consciously do it. Just as your muscles will atrophy if you don’t regularly stress them, your courage will atrophy if you don’t consistently challenge yourself to face down your fears. In the absence of this kind of conscious conditioning, you’ll automatically become weak in both body and mind. If you aren’t regularly exercising your courage, then you are strengthening your fear by default; there is no middle ground. Just as your muscles automatically atrophy from lack of use, so your courage will automatically decay in the absence of conscious conditioning.

Now this may sound overly gloomy, so here’s a positive way to look at it. Heavy weights can be a physical burden, but they are helpful tools to build strong muscles. You would not look at a 45-pound dumbbell and say, “Why must you be so heavy?” It is what it is. Heaviness is your thought, not an intrinsic property of the dumbbell itself. Similarly, do not look at the things you fear and say, “Why must you be so scary?” Fear is your reaction, not a property of the object of your anxiety.

Fear is not your enemy. It is a compass pointing you to the areas where you need to grow. So when you encounter a new fear within yourself, celebrate it as an opportunity for growth, just as you would celebrate reaching a new personal best with strength training.

Catch a Glimpse of Your Own Greatness

Everyone has talent. What is rare is the courage to follow the talent to the dark place where it leads.
- Erica Jong

The highest courage is to dare to appear to be what one is.
- John Lancaster Spalding

Whatever you do, you need courage. Whatever course you decide upon, there is always someone to tell you that you are wrong. There are always difficulties arising that tempt you to believe your critics are right. To map out a course of action and follow it to an end requires some of the same courage that a soldier needs. Peace has its victories, but it takes brave men and women to win them.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson

So what do you do with your newly developed courage? Where will it lead you? The answer is that it will permit you to lead a far more fulfilling and meaningful life. You will truly begin living as a daring human being instead of a timid mouse. You will uncover and develop your greatest talents. You will begin living far more consciously and deliberately than you ever have before. Instead of reacting to events, you will proactively manufacture your own events.

Courage is something you can only truly experience alone. It is a private victory, not a public one. Summoning the courage to listen to your innermost desires is not a group activity and does not result from building a consensus with others. Kahlil Gibran writes in The Prophet, “The vision of one man lends not its wings to another man.” The purpose of your existence is yours alone to discover. No one on earth has lived through the exact same experiences you have, and no one thinks the exact same thoughts you do.

On the one hand, this is a lonely realization. Whether you live alone or enjoy the deepest intimacy with a loving partner, deep down you must still face the reality that your life is yours alone to live. You can choose to temporarily yield control of your life to others, whether it be to a company, a spouse, or simply to the pressures of daily living, but you can never give away your personal responsibility for the results. Whether you assume direct and conscious control over your life or merely react to events as they happen to you, you and you alone must bear the consequences.

If you commit to following the path of courage, you will ultimately be forced to confront what is perhaps the greatest fear of all – that you are far more powerful and capable than you initially realized, that your ultimate potential is far greater than anything you’ve experienced in your past, and that with this power comes tremendous responsibility. You may not be able to solve all the woes of this planet, but if you ever do commit yourself 100% to the fulfillment of your true potential, you can significantly impact the lives of many people, and that impact will ripple through the future for generations to come.

What is the difference between you and one of those legendary historical figures who did have such an impact? You both had many of the same fears. You both were born with talents in some areas and weaknesses in others. The only thing stopping you is fear, and the only thing that will get you past it is courage. What you do with your life isn’t up to your parents, your boss, or your spouse. It’s up to you and you alone.

Catching a glimpse of your own greatness can be one of the most unsettling experiences imaginable. And even more disturbing is the awareness of the tremendous challenges that await you if you accept it. Living consciously is not an easy path, but it is a uniquely human experience, and it requires making the committed decision to permanently let go of that mouse within you. Going after your greatest and most ambitious dreams and experiencing failure and disappointment, running butt up against your most humbling human limitations instead of living with a comfortable padding of potential – these fears are common to us all.

The first few times you encounter such fears, you may quickly retreat back to the illusory security of life as a mouse. But if you keep exercising your courage, you will eventually mature to the point where you can openly accept the challenges and responsibilities of life as a fully conscious human being. Continuing to live as a mouse will simply hold no more interest for you. You will acknowledge within the deepest recesses of your being, I have awakened to this incredible potential within me, and I accept what that will require of me. Whatever it costs me, whatever I must sacrifice to follow this path, bring it on. I’m ready. Even though you will still experience fear, you will recognize it for the illusion it is, and you will know how to use your human courage to face it down, such that fear will no longer have the power to stop you.

Embrace the Daring Adventure

Before you embark on any path ask the question, does this path have a heart? If the answer is no, you will know it and then you must choose another path. The trouble is that nobody asks the question. And when a man finally realizes that he has taken a path without a heart the path is ready to kill him.
- Carlos Castaneda

The deeper that sorrow carves into your being, the more joy you can contain. Is not the cup that holds your wine the very cup that was burned in the potter’s oven? And is not the lute that soothes your spirit, the very wood that was hollowed with knives?
- Kahlil Gibran

Inaction breeds doubt and fear. Action breeds confidence and courage. If you want to conquer fear, do not sit home and think about it. Go out and get busy.
- Dale Carnegie

As you develop a sense of your true purpose in life, you may begin to feel an uneasy disconnect between your current life situation and the one you envision moving towards. These two worlds may seem so different to you that you cannot mentally conceive of how to build a bridge between them. How can you balance the practical reality of taking care of your third-dimensional obligations like earning money to pay your bills and taxes, pleasing your boss, raising your family, and maintaining social relationships with people who can’t even relate to what you’re experiencing vs. the new vision of yourself you desperately want to move towards? A whole host of new fears may crop up related to this seemingly impossible shift. How will you support yourself? What will become of your relationships? Are you just deluding yourself?

The best advice I can give you here is to forget about trying to build a bridge. Focus instead on independently beginning the process of manifesting the new vision of yourself from scratch, as if it were a totally separate thread in your life. If this creates a temporary incongruence in your life, just do it anyway. For example, suppose you currently work as a divorce attorney, but your courage tells you that you must eventually abandon such adversarial work. You envision yourself passionately teaching couples how to heal their broken relationships. But you can’t even fathom yourself as a trial lawyer trying to speak about healthy relationships, and on top of that problem, you can’t see any way to make a decent living in this new career, at least not quickly. There’s just too big a disconnect between this new vision and practical reality. So instead of trying to bridge this gap, just begin building your new vision completely from scratch in whatever time you have, even if it’s only an hour or two each week. Keep doing your regular work as an attorney, but in your spare time, start posting anonymously on relationship message boards to give couples advice on how to heal their relationships. Use the oratory skills you developed as an attorney to begin speaking to small groups about healing relationships. Perhaps create a new web site, and start writing and posting articles about your new passion. You don’t have to hide the fact that you’re an attorney, but don’t worry about bridging these two worlds. Live in paradox. Just start developing the new you, and allow the old one to continue in parallel for a while.

What will happen is that you’ll develop skill in your new undertaking, and you’ll eventually be able to support yourself from it, even if you can’t see how to do so right away. You may not be able to see a way to support yourself in your new vision right now, and that’s fine. Just begin it anyway, doing it for free, without any concern of how to turn it into a new full-time career. Patiently wait for clarity; you will eventually find a way to make it work. Then when the time is right, you’ll be able to peacefully let go of the old career and focus all your energy on the new one. At some point you’ll be able to commit fully to your new self. Your passion for your new work will eventually overwhelm your fear of letting go of your old source of stability. So instead of trying to transform your old career into your new one, just start the process of building your new one, and let your old one gradually fade. Even if you can only invest an hour a week in your new undertaking, you will probably discover that this hour is more fulfilling to you than all the other hours put together, and that passion will drive you to find a way to gradually grow this presence until it fills up most of your days. The most important thing is to begin now by introducing your new vision of yourself to your daily life, even if you can only initially do so in a small way.

No matter how difficult it may seem, make the choice to live consciously. Do not succumb to that half-conscious realm of fear-based thinking, filling your life with distractions to avoid facing what you feel in those silent spaces between your thoughts. Either exercise your human endowment of courage and progressively build the strength to face your deepest, darkest fears to live as the powerful being you truly are, or admit that your fears are too much for you, and embrace life as a mouse. But make this choice consciously and with full awareness of its consequences. If you are going to allow fear to win the battle for your life, then proclaim it the victor and forfeit the match. If you simply avoid living consciously and courageously, then that is equivalent to giving up on life itself, where your continued existence becomes little more than a waiting period before physical death – the nothing as opposed to the daring adventure.

Don’t die without embracing the daring adventure your life is meant to be. You may go broke. You may experience failure and rejection repeatedly. You may endure multiple dysfunctional relationships. But these are all milestones along the path of a life lived courageously. They are your private victories, carving a deeper space within you to be filled with an abundance of joy, happiness, and fulfillment. So go ahead and feel the fear – then summon the courage to follow your dreams anyway. That is strength undefeatable.