There are two ways to hear anything Part 2. What was said and what you heard...

I have been observing people"s behavior in seminars, coaching calls, and even one-on-one conversations.

They are rarely hearing what you are saying. ((This is the foundation, by the way, of the saying that you cannot talk butterfly to a caterpillar person... they translate everything to caterpillar... so you can talk, but they don"t hear you.))

Do what do they do?

• 1. they get hooked on something you said, and now they are in their minds, having a totally different conversations... a conversation wholly independent from what you are talking about.


• 2. they are arguing with you in their heads... don"t agree, don"t like, don"t own.


• 3. they have checked out... they are as good as asleep.

I have seen this third one in various courses and seminars.

When the topic goes to something that is unconfrontable, difficult, would take courage or intelligence to follow... something that is contrary to their world-view... people check out. They may fall asleep... especially men.

These is the main reason why I rarely offer one-on-one talk type coaching:...

...because of those three, people, at best, get about 10% of what was said. And even with the recording (I record every conversation I have) the number won"t go above 20%.

So what is in the way of you hearing what is being said, and benefit from it, one way or another?

Yet another way to not hear, not see anything is when what is there to see offends your sensibilities.

Your sensibilities, of course, are not allowing you to see reality, life, the way it is, the way it is dark and light and everything in between. ((Think positive, or the one that clued me in to this world view. Helen Keller had a truth value of 3%... Just because she was blind and deaf, she wasn"t more evolved than other people... why would you say that she was? Stupidity in contagious.

Many of my students think that they can learn by osmosis... but osmosis works against the higher... osmosis is what damages the cherry immersed in water. Osmosis is what pulls the water out of your vegetables if you salt them and let them stand in the salt. So Osmosis works against you... it takes your essence away.))

This phenomenon, not hearing, not listening to what you consider dark, or negative, or not good, is trained... not born with. It is not innate... it is the result of indoctrination.

It is why your TLB is so low, by the way. Your tolerance to anything unpleasant, like waiting, or ugly, or nasty, or offensive is between zero and none... unless, of course, you are the perpetrator. Then you"ll explain it away.

We are indoctrinated that the good always succeeds over the evil... and if you look around in the world, exactly the opposite is true.

The evil is winning, 60:40... and it"s getting worse. By the day!

Why is that? Because of you. Because of your indoctrination by family, school, books, films, etc... you don"t trust yourself. You feel powerless and you extend this powerlessness to every area of life... you are resigned, and you have given up on yourself, on life, on everything.

What about the activists?

Unfortunately activism is powerless...

As long as everything is about you, as long as you are deluded and have a precious "I", as long as you live in the mind, your actions are powerless. And most activism is about what you think, what you like, and a hero complex... not even about the thing it seems to be about. It is all about the activist.

This will make no sense to you, but societal change begins with the individual... which means: you need to become an individual.

You are not... you are a fit-in machine, not an individual. If I asked you who you are, you would not have much to say past your name, gender, and occupation.

Even though you fancy yourself special, want to be treated as special, you are dull and ordinary...living in the mind, hoping that it will all turn out in the end.

It won"t. It won"t turn out. Not now, not ever!

There is no one thing that can make you an individual.

But toughening up and allowing bad stuff, including bad stuff is as good a start as any.

For example, I am reading lawyer stories and my TLB has gone up 10 point in the past few weeks, maybe five? Of course I read a lot. I read some 20 books in this time frame... I read 2-8 hours a day. Every day.

Your results will not be similar to mine if you read 10-20 pages a day. Or if you read crap. Or if you read with your mind.

I have an ex client who is a reader of mystery books... Her ability to be tough in any regard is zero... So how you read and what you read matter.

I still jump up at times when it is going to be bad in the book. I catch myself, and go back and stay with it. The more often I can keep at it, stay with it, the tougher I become.