35LessonsOf Life 2

“Luke: I can’t believe it. Yoda: That is why you fail.”

Back when I was younger and first watched the Star Wars movies, one of the best parts was definitely Yoda. He was an early introduction to personal development and spirituality long before I had much interest in this stuff. So today I’d like to share three of my favorite words of wisdom from that green little awesome guy.

“Do or do not… there is no try.”

1. Don’t try. Do : When you tell yourself and/or someone else that you will try you are in my experience more likely to give up or just stop when the first obstacle shows up. By making clear choices to do or not do something – and putting power behind those choices – you are more likely to actually get things done and succeed.

2. Overcome your fears : Overcoming your fears is one of the most important things to improve yourself and grow. If you don’t you will just get stuck. But how do you do it? Well, first, as Yoda says, you have to stop avoiding your fear.

“Fear is the path to the dark side. Fear leads to anger. Anger leads to hate. Hate leads to suffering.”

“You will find only what you bring in.”

3. Your world is a reflection of you : You find in your world what you bring into your world. And in your world you can see yourself – your thoughts and behavior – reflected. By observing the world around you can gain insights into yourself and what you may need to improve.

“Die when I may, I want it said by those who knew me best that I always plucked a thistle and planted a flower where I thought a flower would grow.”“I am not bound to win, but I am bound to be true. I am not bound to succeed, but I am bound to live by the light that I have. I must stand with anybody that stands right, and stand with him while he is right, and part with him when he goes wrong.”“With the fearful strain that is on me night and day, if I did not laugh I should die.”

Abraham Lincoln was the president who introduced and worked on measures to free the slaves and led the country through the Civil War. A war that had just ended when Lincoln was assassinated by John Wilkes Booth in Ford’s Theatre. Well, here are 10 powerful and timeless fundamentals. I hope you’ll find something helpful.

“The way for a young man to rise is to improve himself in every way he can, never suspecting that anybody wishes to hinder him.”

1. See the positive in people. : You can develop a habit of looking for the positive. A habit where you can expect people to treat you in a positive way. If we expect other people to help us and treat us well then they are more likely to do so than if we are negative and expect to be treated poorly.

“No man has a good enough memory to be a successful liar.”

2. Be honest : This is a pretty practical thing. Being honest will for several reasons work better in the long run. Of course, you don’t have to go out of your way to be honest and hurt people though. You can just as well choose to be silent if you like.

“A house divided against itself cannot stand.”

3. Unite. The most useful advice I’ve found so far to get a handle on the need to divide is to not identify so much with my thoughts or feelings. That doesn’t mean that I stop thinking or feeling. It just means that I realize that the thoughts and emotions are just things flowing through me. And that I am the consciousness observing them.

“I don’t like that man. I must get to know him better.”

4. Create a friend where there is none : But if you get to know someone better you can often find out quite a few positive and interesting things about them. People are often more intriguing than your first impression of them.

“Things may come to those who wait, but only the things left by those who hustle.”

5. Believe in and go after your own success : If you think you can succeed then you can. Your belief in your own ability to succeed is essential and does not only motivate you to keep going.

“Hold on with a bulldog grip, and chew and choke as much as possible.”

6. Persist : Persistence may be one of the most useful qualities one can have. Not only because you will still be out there in a less competitive playing field as lot other people have given up and gone home. But also because developing patience and being persistent will enable you to get what you want. It may just take a little longer than had hoped for.

“If I had eight hours to chop down a tree, I’d spend six hours sharpening my axe.”

7. Sharpen your axe : So success is not just about doing hard work. It’s also about sharpening your axe at regular intervals and learning new and better ways to take down the trees in your life. However, you don’t want to get stuck in this stage and never take action. As with all things, you have to find a balance by experimenting.

“You cannot help men permanently by doing for them what they could and should do for themselves.”

8. Take a responsibility for your own life : But without taking responsibility for yourself how can you be free? How can you really live up you own potential and dreams? It can be hard to break out of the comfort zone of having other people taking responsibility for us. But if you don’t then you will be trapped by other people’s standards, expectations and limitations. You have to set your own rules for your life.

“Most folks are about as happy as they make their minds up to be.”

9. Happiness is optional. You can choose to not feel insulted when someone says something. You can choose to not to be angry whilst stuck in traffic. You can choose to see the positive in people. And you can choose how happy you will be.

“In the end, it’s not the years in your life that count. It’s the life in your years.”

10. Live your life fully : This one is just beautiful. It might be useful to remind yourself of this saying regularly. Maybe when you feel like you are veering off track. Or when heading into things like small-mindedness, laziness or complacency. So you don’t forget about it.

“There is nothing permanent except change.”

“Good character is not formed in a week or a month. It is created little by little, day by day. Protracted and patient effort is needed to develop good character.”

About 2500 years ago there lived a man named Heraclitus in the city of Ephesus in Greece. He lived a lonely life, created his own cryptic philosophy and wasn’t that fond of humanity. Still, he became a big influence on famous stoics like Epictetus, Marcus Aurelius and Seneca. And he had a few really good words of wisdom that I would like to share today.

1. Envy is a really good way to hurt yourself : Happiness often seems to be fleeting. But people can hold onto envy and make it even stronger over the course of many years.

“Our envy always lasts longer than the happiness of those we envy.”

2. Understanding can not be found in books : So you have to take action and do things. And when you start doing things you might also discover that things are often a bit more messy in real life than in books where it may seem like you only have to follow a clean ten step method to get the results you want.

“Much learning does not teach understanding.”

3. Be like the child again : It is a bit funny and at the same time a bit sad how much of what one may strive for through personal development that is about being like a child again. Because it’s about living in the moment. It’s about being open and curious and not getting trapped in your comfort zone or fear.

“Man is most nearly himself when he achieves the seriousness of a child at play.”

I love people who make me laugh. I honestly think it’s the thing I like most, to laugh. It cures a multitude of ills. It’s probably the most important thing in a person.”

“Pick the day. Enjoy it – to the hilt. The day as it comes. People as they come… The past, I think, has helped me appreciate the present – and I don’t want to spoil any of it by fretting about the future.”

Back in the old days, when movies where shot in black and white – and later on too – Audrey Hepburn was one of the biggest stars in Hollywood. Not only did she win an Oscar for “Roman Holiday”, she was also an ambassador for UNICEF and she is a timeless fashion icon. Here are three of my favorite words of wisdom from her.

“For beautiful eyes, look for the good in others; for beautiful lips, speak only words of kindness; and for poise, walk with the knowledge that you are never alone.”

1. Your outside is a reflection of the inner you. Of course, it’s not always easy to look for the good in others, speak only kind words or to not put up walls in your mind between you and others. Sometimes you just have bad days. But it is important to keep this stuff in mind and use it as much as you can. Whatever that is inside of you is always shining out and through in one way or another.

“I never think of myself as an icon. What is in other people’s minds is not in my mind. I just do my thing.”

2. Don’t worry what others are thinking about you. One of the biggest part of thinking and doing what you really want is to stop caring so much about what other people think of you.

“Success is like reaching an important birthday and finding you’re exactly the same.”

3. Finally getting something may not be all it’s cracked up to be. Now, new things or people can be great. But if you think this one success or event you are looking forward to in life will fix all your problems or if you focus on the wrong aspects – what is not perfect, how can I get more etc. – instead of the positives and gratitude then you may find yourself always looking for the next thing and create quite a bit of stress and unhappiness within.

“Aim for the highest.”

“You cannot push anyone up the ladder unless he is willing to climb.”

In the late 1800s there lived a very rich man. In fact, he was so rich that he is now considered the second richest man in history. His name was Andrew Carnegie. You may have heard this name before if you have read the classic personal development book “Think and Grow Rich”. It was Carnegie that gave the author Napoleon Hill the assignment to interview hundreds of wealthy people about success. And those interviews became the foundation for the book. Here are four of Carnegie’s own top tips for massive success.

1. Pay attention to the more important things : Talking is easy, but walking your talk is harder. And this not just a good way to see people in a clear way. It’s also a good way to look at yourself more clearly. Because you can tell yourself and others all kinds of things all day. But what you are actually getting done shows a lot about who you are right now and how you future will look.

“As I grow older, I pay less attention to what men say. I just watch what they do.”

2. Make it fun, make it light : Don’t take things too serious. Learn to laugh about them a bit more. This does not only make it easier to consistently keep up the good work. It also makes it easier to handle what would previously be “huge setbacks/problems”.

“There is little success where there is little laughter.”

3. Be persistent. Don’t spread yourself too thin : You have to get started and take action. Things can seem a certain way in your head when you think about doing them. But you have to actually do them for a while to gain understanding of how they really are.

“The men who have succeeded are men who have chosen one line and stuck to it.”

4. Motivate yourself. It’s your choice : Like Carnegie, I believe you have to rely on yourself to be able to keep taking action patiently and persistently. Without developing this habit then action and results will go up and down and be very inconsistent. And without consistency over a longer time period it does not matter so much what other talents or gifts you may have inside of you.

“People who are unable to motivate themselves must be content with mediocrity, no matter how impressive their other talents.”

“I won’t predict anything historic. But nothing is impossible.”

Michael Phelps set one world record after another. He took home the most Gold Medals (8!) that anyone ever has at one Olympic Game. And he also has the most Olympic Gold Medals that anyone has ever won in the history of the games. Phelps has some genetic advantages, like unusual long arms plus very flexible ankles, but the mental part is still crucial. So what can we learn from Michael Phelps and his mindset? Here are five fundamentals.

1. It starts with your thoughts : It all starts with your thoughts. They and your emotions get you to do – or not to do – things. How you act does also to a pretty large degree determine what you get from other people in your life. Emotions and thoughts are contagious. And you tend to get what you give, at least over time.

“I think that everything is possible as long as you put your mind to it and you put the work and time into it. I think your mind really controls everything.”

2. Keep a steady and consistent focus. Thinking about what you want is of course extremely important. Much of this comes down to how reactive you are to other people and events. If you are constantly in reaction to what happens around you, you let the outside world control what you focus on. So how can you get your focus to become more like an arrow that is moving forward rather than a boat where the guy at the rudder has fallen asleep?

“ If I want to be as successful as I want to be, I have to be thinking about it all the time.”

3. Dream without limits : Now, dreaming without limits may sound like empty self-help mumbo-jumbo. But your dreams and beliefs do to a large degree determine what you can and will allow yourself to do. It comes down to if you can see what you want in your reality as something realistic and if you will allow it to be there.

“You can’t put a limit on anything. The more you dream, the farther you get.”

4. Accept what happens and learn from it : And instead of beating yourself up or feeling sorry for yourself you can see the situation in a more positive and constructive way. Like for instance by looking for the lessons or the positive stuff in your failure. One of the greatest things about acceptance is that it can give you freedom from your old behavior patterns and “you acting as you have always done”.

“A lot of new obstacles are coming, a lot of new feelings are coming, … I’m just taking it for what it is and learning from the mistakes I had this year.”

5. Be careful with inflating your ego or identifying too strongly with your success : This doesn’t mean that you don’t have a high level of confidence in yourself and your abilities. It just means that you should be careful with getting completely wrapped up in your past achievements and letting you ego inflate too a harmful size.

“I’m the same kind of guy before all this happened.”

“If you want your life to be more rewarding, you have to change the way you think.”

“For everyone of us that succeeds, it’s because there’s somebody there to show you the way out.”

One of the coolest things online this spring was the webinars with Oprah and Eckhart Tolle. Each week during 10 weeks they discussed the ego, the present, consciousness and other ideas from Tolle’s book “A New Earth”. These episodes were mostly about Tolle and his ideas. Today I’d like to focus a bit on Oprah. So here are a few of her tips and reminders that resonate with me right now.

“Be thankful for what you have; you’ll end up having more. If you concentrate on what you don’t have, you will never, ever have enough.”

1. Keep your focus in the right place : When you focus on what you have and appreciate it or focus on what you want a lot of things will start to “pop up” in your reality. By being thankful and making appreciating a regular habit you cannot only quickly change a sour mood into a positive one.

2. Redefine failure : One of the big things holding people back from getting what they want is the fear of failure. In fact, without failure you’ll probably never learn the things you need to achieve the success you dream of. Instead of seeing failure as something big and scary, redefine it in your mind as a learning experience.

“Do the one thing you think you cannot do. Fail at it. Try again. Do better the second time. The only people who never tumble are those who never mount the high wire. This is your moment. Own it.”

3. You are fuelling your own fear : Surrender and let it in. Observe the feeling in your mind and bodywithout labeling or judging it. If you let it in and just observe it for maybe a minute or two something wonderful happens. The feeling just weakens and sometimes vanishes completely.

“Whatever you fear most has no power – it is your fear that has the power.”

4. Do the right thing. But if you make your own rules then you answer to yourself. When you are accountable to yourself instead of the world around you it will be easier to do what you feel is right more consistently.

“Real integrity is doing the right thing, knowing that nobody’s going to know whether you did it or not.”

5. You get what you give. In more than one way: The more negativity you dole out the worse you tend to feel in your everyday life. The more problems you find and cause. The more you overreact and feel a sad funk arising from nowhere in particular. Maybe it’s because giving out much negativity causes you to focus your RAS more on the negative things in your life.

“What I know for sure is that what you give comes back to you.”

6. Let go of the past. Live in the present. The tip is to learning to spend more and more time in the present rather than the past or a projected future.

“Breathe. Let go. And remind yourself that this very moment is the only one you know you have for sure.”

7. It’s up to you what happens. Well, you realize that you need to be behind the wheel and in control. And when you stop spending time looking for the next magic pill you become focused. You realize that no book can give you more than the knowledge. You realize that you need to take action in your life and create your life in the way you want it.

“We are each responsible for our own life – no other person is or even can be.”

You could do very well in any area of your life by just focusing on these few tips. Things don’t really have to be that complicated. Get these things handled reasonably well and your world opens up big time.

Thank You Very MuchSompong Yusoontorn