How's your River of Life Running?

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Earl Nightingale had a great recording, I think it was out of his "Lead the Field".

He talks about "River People" and "Goal People". The latter work incessantly toward a fixed goal, and the former swim in a river of interest.

Nightingale gave several examples of each.

It came to me gradually over the course of several days, that you really need to be working at what you like to do best - what turns your crank, what makes you happy, your passion, your purpose for your life.

For when you do that, you are just completely involved and no task is to onerous or too involved.

Some are incredible at merchandizing. Sam Walton of Wal-Mart, as well as the original J.C. Penney - where Walton got his earliest training in the field. Others are incredible at manufacturing, like Henry Ford. Some have logistics (UPS, Fed-Ex) as their bent - others work at computer programming (Microsoft, Apple). Some simply write entertaining and educational or enlightening stories.

But they have their "rivers" of interest which are ever flowing, never stopping currents which keep them fascinated all the time. I'm reading a story right now where a psychologist is fascinated with the mental ease with which Jesus met life - the human side of him was constantly intrigued with how people around him met life and how he could help them achieve their own peace by no more than talking with them.

In every life, there are the eddys and tidal washes, the still pools at the edge where a snag has slowed the current. When we seem to get into one of these scenarios, a person starts to question their life's purpose. Did they go wrong somewhere, is the way they are traveling still the right path for them?

In all cases, the action is still to reaffirm the river you are swimming in and then get back out into the faster current. As you do, you'll find your interest in life picks up and everything becomes far more enjoyable. Sure, there's lots of work, but it isn't a drugery, onerous, or taxing. You simply fly through your work, staying up late and then rising early - inspired by yet another idea.

For me, when I'm in that river, it's the point of constant inspiration - so much that I often mis-prepare breakfast (still edible, but oops...) or tend to space out in the middle of a TV program with some riveting notion turning in my head while I scratch notes onto a handy yellow pad. Yes, I was trying to catch the weather so I knew what I should be planning for over the next few days of farm work, but - oops...

Life in those times is fascinatingly smooth, cheerful, full of expectant ideas and solutions which appear just a moment after you get the question just right.

And as I write this, I'm bringing myself out of some sort of back-water eddy I had slipped into. Sure, I knew that this was an exploration when I started - but I didn't know that it was going to show me so much about my own interests and what I knew I really should be doing.

So - ask yourself these questions:

1. If you didn't have to work for a living, what would you be doing all day?
   
   
2. What activitie(s) bring you the most joy in your life?
   
   
3. What situations have you been in where you found yourself remarkably calm, assured, content?

Answer these honestly for yourself. Take a few days or weeks or months to actually answer them if you have to.

Once you have those answers, cross-compare them to isolate what your true "river of interest" is. And then plan carefully to wrap up whatever you are currently doing, getting your replacement grooved in, and this new (or current) occupation really streamlined and financed and set up so you can devote yourself utterly to it from here on out. (Of course, you don't neglect your family and friends - but you'll find that they bring you part of this calming internal peace, don't they?)

For some this river is a series of goals achieved, one after the other, a new one starting as the last one is finished. But a river, nonetheless.

- - - -

And you can always leave me a message here or on one of my other blogs about how you've found your river and how to swim in it.

Or you can have your own blog - and post calmly, serenely, and actively. Posting all the things, ideas, activities which you find fascinating.

Good Hunting!

The universe is a team activity

(photo credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/elsie/)

Yes, the Universe is a Team Activity -
but you knew this all along...

That old Benjamin Franklin phrase comes to mind, "We must all hang together or surely, we shall all hang separately."

And it's not just the "greenies" or "enviro's" that have a point here. I'm speaking far more pragmatically here.

There's a Universal connection in/with/around all of us. If you want to refer to it as God, that would be fine. This is one concept of the Western Christian view. However, Buddhists and Hindu and even older religions and philosophies essentialy hold the same view, just by different names.

And those who hold this thought and follow it (where do you think genius and inspiration come from?) have the world rise up to them and give them everything they want. True. Read the biographies of the outrageously successful - or books by people who have studied them (like Napoleon Hill's Think and Grow Rich or Law of Success). You'll find that there are just a handful of people who didn't have to study and learn esoteric concepts in order to succeed in anything they wanted. But they did follow a few basic principles regardless.

Dale Carnegie tapped into these same principles when he studied the average, ordinary person who came into his public speaking courses (Ripley's noted that he had critiqued over 150,000 speeches, which I think is also in the Guiness record book.) And his books became bestsellers when he wrote about the basic concepts he tapped into.

That Hill and Carnegie continue to be successes are due more to the caliber of their thinking than the quality of their writing or the foundations which took over their works after they passed.

They both did extensive studies of humankind in the raw. And found that there were simple underlying basics to any person's success.

Teamwork is one of these. We have it in all of us. And all the corporate magnates Hill studied, or the small business entrepreneurs who came to study with Carnegie - they all knew this to be a fact. When people cooperate, they get more done than the same amount of people can do individually.

This is due to an inherent common connection we all share - the Universe.

And while I can go further into tools and approaches and ways to improve your abilities in this area, I'll leave you with this simple beginning approach:

1. Pray or meditate or simply sit in relaxed silence at least once daily. (3 times is better.)
2. Just listen when you're in that mode - to your heartbeat, your breathing, the wind. Just listen. Banish all thoughts simply by letting these go - simply relax and let the world fall away. Listen.
3. Come out of that (after 15 minutes or an hour or however long you can keep it up) and revisit your own purpose - what is it that brings a smile to your face, quickens your step, really sponsors your action on a daily basis. Your purpose is what you would love to do if you didn't have to "work" for a living.
4. Get the concept of your own ideal scene and really visualize it - get the feelings of having that all around you. These will be calm, cheerful, expectant feelings - because you'll know that this is possible.
   
5. Release this to the Universe.
   
6. Right about then, or shortly after, you'll get an idea about what you can do to bring this into existence - a small step or a series of them. Write these down somewhere so you can keep track of what you need to do.
   
7. And then incorporate those inspired steps into your life somehow. Start acting on them.

When you do these steps daily (like I said 3 times a day is best for our Western world) - you'll start making the improvements in your life that align your own purpose with the Universe around you. You'll be "doing your own thing" and the Universe will be helping you accomplish it. Because we are all in this together and the more we work together, the more we can get done.

Yes, this means real world peace is just around the corner - and an end to any serious food, housing, clothing and security problems currently in this world.

All we each have to do is outlines above (and it will only take about 3 percent of this planet actively doing those 7 steps listed to make major changes).

So: Good Hunting!

How to survive life itself - and succeed into enormous wealth meanwhile...

(photocredit: FabFinance.com)

You can actually survive life and get incredibly wealthy at the same time.

(Recession-- what recession? We don't need no stinkin' recession...)

Of course, you won't figure this out by watching the news or attending any number of schools.

Because these are designed to serve the majority. They are designed to foster tabloid fascination ("news") and lockstep conformity ("schools"). Their end result is a populace which tends to follow the same trends and not really question anything they are told, but just react appropriately.

Your own purpose for being here runs counter to those two groups.

Because you and your purpose are unique, individual.

And what you are doing here is special - you are here not just to "make a living" or "support a family" or "live to reach retirement".

Practically, you are here to save this universe. Really. Because every single person here is depended on by the Universe to provide diversity and independence of thought. And the universe would quickly just run down and quit if it weren't for your particular input.

It's called the law of entropy. And it's just Nature's way of taking out the trash and then picking it up from the sidewalk. All the way things are done.

But growing things, building things, making stuff bigger, better, more exciting - that's what you are here for and what you are supposed to be doing.

You weren't created, weren't born, weren't infused with Life - just so you could sit in front of the TV with you chosen partner and then just "watch."

Whatever you're here for, only you really know. No one else can tell you what you're here for - they can only tell you about ways they've used to find their own. And these ways may or may not work for you.

But the trick is that you have to try.

A few hints here:

1. Try to constantly build the attitude of calm, cheerful expectancy. This will bring you more good things into your life - almost more than you can imagine.
   
2. Give open-handedly and don't expect anything in return. This will help all these good things coming to you surprise you even more. Especially works for charities.
3. Worried about your job? Don't be. Work positively on how you can give the most to your company and improve its ability to expand in its current economic climate. Work for expansion of others. Don't have a job? Find a company you can help - do the research to get a plan for their expansion, then offer that plan to them along with your services. (See the chapter on this in "Think and Grow Rich" by Napoleon Hill. He wrote it for people coming out of the Depression - it works!

Good Hunting!