Build on what you have, instead of starting something new... Integrate or eliminate

I just got an email from one-time coach of mine in internet marketing.

He says that one of the reasons he loves information products because he gets to see the difference it makes in people"s lives.

I muscle testes that statement, and muscle test says it was a lie. Or more precisely, it had a 1% truth value.

One of the most important things for you to learn from me, is that people lie.

They buy something because they want the result it promises, the result it can produce if the person who buys it uses it the way it was meant to be used.

They say: I love that product, because ... and then gush about unimportant things, like their experience, colored, entirely by the glow of the promise the product holds for them.

And then, surprisingly, only about 1% of the buyers can prove that they produced results with the program.

Why only 1%? Because the rest didn"t have bridge between what they can do and what there is to do.

I am one of the 99%, or have been until I took on an internet marketing program in the 20 Day Skill Learning Challenge, just about a month ago.

It didn"t go the way I expected it to go, but it went well.

I was able to learn and do what needed to be done, 70% of what was taught in that information product, aka course.

My "normal" result with any internet marketing course, previous to that, was 0%, except the courses Robert Plank teaches, that uses a special technique I haven"t seen anyone else use.

Your approach

Now, it wasn"t this new course I attacked in the challenge that was different. My approach was different.

I picked out tiny pieces of the course I could wrap my brain around, that i could connect to things I already used, and implemented it. Tiny pieces.

Unexpectedly, those tiny pieces added up the 70% completion, to my utter amazement.

Would I write a raving testimonial about the product? No. My experience was that it was hard, that it was almost unintelligible, and that I could not do it. So the author of the program would consider me non-complying buyer, while judging from his invisible for most behavior, the compliance rate of the course, in essence its success, was around 1%, normal.

That means, 99% of the people who bought it didn"t benefit from it, or not much.

Now, what can you learn from this article?

People lie.

One of the purposes, unconscious purpose, but a purpose nevertheless, for people to leave untrue testimonials is because misery loves company.

You brag about your non-existent results, and then others will try, and you"ll feel superior.

If you believe what other people say, they keep you in the crab bucket... so don"t.

Experience is the boobie prize... the consolation prize. Experience is important to those who don"t win... And you may be one of them... Chasing experiences, but not results.

I want to be happy is one of these experiences... Living for them is the hallmark of the unsuccessful.

So what can you do instead? Start finding out what pieces of life, or a body of knowledge you already have... for whatever reason.

And start to build knowledge next to it, near it, connected to it.

Everyone has knowledge, working knowledge, skills, they are just isolated islands, and don"t for a continent.

But you can use them.

This is true in every area of life... by the way.

In my work, where you want to develop capacities to raise your vibration, you want to look for a capacity that is closest to what you already have. And one that you can have some support, if possible.

For example, when I started, I chose to develop generosity. I was already very giving... although not generous of heart. But it was close enough...

Examples:

One of the Playground partners struggles with the idea of having to do what he doesn"t like to do, because he is not good at it. His partner, on the other hand, invented a way to deal with the similar issue, his stumbling block is tiredness that seems to block him from doing what he has to do.

So when he gets home from work, he is tired. Justifiably tired. Physically tired. Mentally tired. And so he says: I am going to take a five-ten minute break, and then I am going to practice my guitar... or learn a Playground distinction... whatever there is to do.

His operative word is "and"... I am going to rest/break, and I am going to do what is difficult.

This is a small step away from the other person"s habit of saying: I don"t like it therefore I won"t do it.

The difference is that pesky therefore word...

He could start saying: I don"t like it and I am going to do it.

Or what I suggested to another Playground participant yesterday: the more I do it the better I get at it... and then I"ll love it.

Or what I suggested to a third person, not in the Playground: learn to say: I am exercising my freedom of choice, and I choose to do what is difficult for me... or choose to remain the same.

Just by saying that HE is choosing it, not some mystical power, he is taking responsibility for it, and that is the secret.

When I saw that I could be responsible for learning this course, instead of blaming it on my dyslexia, or stupidity, or the author of the course, I can take on the responsibility as mine, and gain enough power from it, to get from a to b... and I did.

I looked and look for what I already knew, what I already did, that I can enlarge...

If I keep doing this, I"ll create an America size continent, and will be unbeatable.

By the way, I watch a lot of Frank Kern videos, and found that to be able to learn what he teaches, I probably need 12 little island worth of knowledge only.

And how long would it take for me to build 12 little closely knit islands? Probably six months? If I do it in earnest. Forever if I don"t do what it takes.

Is it a worthwhile goal for me? Hell yeah...

Now, in hindsight, I found what principle I used to facilitate my learning.

Turns out there was a psychologist who coined the phrase: zone of proximal development.

It"s not complicated: it is just a difficult way to say: find what you can already do... then go just a little deeper, or further, and that is your zone of proximal development level, where you can learn something new with a little help from a course, a tutor, or a coach.

If the course, the tutor or the coach is not enough... then you went to far: you went beyond the zone.

[caption id="attachment_48553" align="alignleft" width="300"] Is knowledge a product Quantifiable (measurable) Storable (in a database) Communicable (via networks) Can knowledge be transferred from a full store (Professor) to a relatively empty store (Student) It may appear so, but really knowledge is knowing how to process, and learning is an active process of changing one’s own processing. Knowledge is a process not a product. 9/22/2018. Brian Whitworth ©[/caption]

What the underlying principle is that enlarging something that you have is easier than building something from nothing.

Whether it is something physical, like a building, or knowledge, skill or attitude, is immaterial: remember, this is a principle...

So in my webinar, yesterday, I was looking at what is the person already able to do, and endeavored to enlarge it.

Please allow a little room for rookie mistakes... I have never known anything about this before: didn"t think I needed it. For that I apologize.

In my Playground course what I am most struggling with is the first thing... what would be proximal (meaning close to it) in people"s knowledge?

In the first module of that course what we are working to establish is that what we have been considering reality is not what reality is...

In my methodology we distinguish things by what they are not, and not by what they are... because that method is slowly approximate what it is... the strait and narrow method.

I am going to experiment how to apply the zone of proximal development method to my type of learning...

Obviously unless I can invent a way, there isn"t one already, that I can just go and learn.

I just watched another internet marketer"s short video: Integrate or Eliminate... and now I have a new word for this Proximal Zone whatever that is...

If it can be integrated with what you already know, then it is in the proximity, and can enlarge the area that you can build a life on. If it cannot be integrated... then it isn"t going to be useful, maybe ever.

This is a great principle when you need to pick a book to read, a course to take, a relationship to start, a hobby, a new skill, a new behavior.

Unless you can see, easily, that it can be integrated, you are barking up the wrong tree, so just move closer to what you already know, so you can integrate.

The method I illustrate above are a perfect example for integration... even if it is not exact.

Build on what you have, instead of starting something new... Integrate or eliminate

I just got an email from one-time coach of mine in internet marketing.

He says that one of the reasons he loves information products because he gets to see the difference it makes in people"s lives.

I muscle testes that statement, and muscle test says it was a lie. Or more precisely, it had a 1% truth value.

One of the most important things for you to learn from me, is that people lie.

They buy something because they want the result it promises, the result it can produce if the person who buys it uses it the way it was meant to be used.

They say: I love that product, because ... and then gush about unimportant things, like their experience, colored, entirely by the glow of the promise the product holds for them.

And then, surprisingly, only about 1% of the buyers can prove that they produced results with the program.

Why only 1%? Because the rest didn"t have bridge between what they can do and what there is to do.

I am one of the 99%, or have been until I took on an internet marketing program in the 20 Day Skill Learning Challenge, just about a month ago.

It didn"t go the way I expected it to go, but it went well.

I was able to learn and do what needed to be done, 70% of what was taught in that information product, aka course.

My "normal" result with any internet marketing course, previous to that, was 0%, except the courses Robert Plank teaches, that uses a special technique I haven"t seen anyone else use.

Your approach

Now, it wasn"t this new course I attacked in the challenge that was different. My approach was different.

I picked out tiny pieces of the course I could wrap my brain around, that i could connect to things I already used, and implemented it. Tiny pieces.

Unexpectedly, those tiny pieces added up the 70% completion, to my utter amazement.

Would I write a raving testimonial about the product? No. My experience was that it was hard, that it was almost unintelligible, and that I could not do it. So the author of the program would consider me non-complying buyer, while judging from his invisible for most behavior, the compliance rate of the course, in essence its success, was around 1%, normal.

That means, 99% of the people who bought it didn"t benefit from it, or not much.

Now, what can you learn from this article?

People lie.

One of the purposes, unconscious purpose, but a purpose nevertheless, for people to leave untrue testimonials is because misery loves company.

You brag about your non-existent results, and then others will try, and you"ll feel superior.

If you believe what other people say, they keep you in the crab bucket... so don"t.

Experience is the boobie prize... the consolation prize. Experience is important to those who don"t win... And you may be one of them... Chasing experiences, but not results.

I want to be happy is one of these experiences... Living for them is the hallmark of the unsuccessful.

So what can you do instead? Start finding out what pieces of life, or a body of knowledge you already have... for whatever reason.

And start to build knowledge next to it, near it, connected to it.

Everyone has knowledge, working knowledge, skills, they are just isolated islands, and don"t for a continent.

But you can use them.

This is true in every area of life... by the way.

In my work, where you want to develop capacities to raise your vibration, you want to look for a capacity that is closest to what you already have. And one that you can have some support, if possible.

For example, when I started, I chose to develop generosity. I was already very giving... although not generous of heart. But it was close enough...

Examples:

One of the Playground partners struggles with the idea of having to do what he doesn"t like to do, because he is not good at it. His partner, on the other hand, invented a way to deal with the similar issue, his stumbling block is tiredness that seems to block him from doing what he has to do.

So when he gets home from work, he is tired. Justifiably tired. Physically tired. Mentally tired. And so he says: I am going to take a five-ten minute break, and then I am going to practice my guitar... or learn a Playground distinction... whatever there is to do.

His operative word is "and"... I am going to rest/break, and I am going to do what is difficult.

This is a small step away from the other person"s habit of saying: I don"t like it therefore I won"t do it.

The difference is that pesky therefore word...

He could start saying: I don"t like it and I am going to do it.

Or what I suggested to another Playground participant yesterday: the more I do it the better I get at it... and then I"ll love it.

Or what I suggested to a third person, not in the Playground: learn to say: I am exercising my freedom of choice, and I choose to do what is difficult for me... or choose to remain the same.

Just by saying that HE is choosing it, not some mystical power, he is taking responsibility for it, and that is the secret.

When I saw that I could be responsible for learning this course, instead of blaming it on my dyslexia, or stupidity, or the author of the course, I can take on the responsibility as mine, and gain enough power from it, to get from a to b... and I did.

I looked and look for what I already knew, what I already did, that I can enlarge...

If I keep doing this, I"ll create an America size continent, and will be unbeatable.

By the way, I watch a lot of Frank Kern videos, and found that to be able to learn what he teaches, I probably need 12 little island worth of knowledge only.

And how long would it take for me to build 12 little closely knit islands? Probably six months? If I do it in earnest. Forever if I don"t do what it takes.

Is it a worthwhile goal for me? Hell yeah...

Now, in hindsight, I found what principle I used to facilitate my learning.

Turns out there was a psychologist who coined the phrase: zone of proximal development.

It"s not complicated: it is just a difficult way to say: find what you can already do... then go just a little deeper, or further, and that is your zone of proximal development level, where you can learn something new with a little help from a course, a tutor, or a coach.

If the course, the tutor or the coach is not enough... then you went to far: you went beyond the zone.

[caption id="attachment_48553" align="alignleft" width="300"] Is knowledge a product Quantifiable (measurable) Storable (in a database) Communicable (via networks) Can knowledge be transferred from a full store (Professor) to a relatively empty store (Student) It may appear so, but really knowledge is knowing how to process, and learning is an active process of changing one’s own processing. Knowledge is a process not a product. 9/22/2018. Brian Whitworth ©[/caption]

What the underlying principle is that enlarging something that you have is easier than building something from nothing.

Whether it is something physical, like a building, or knowledge, skill or attitude, is immaterial: remember, this is a principle...

So in my webinar, yesterday, I was looking at what is the person already able to do, and endeavored to enlarge it.

Please allow a little room for rookie mistakes... I have never known anything about this before: didn"t think I needed it. For that I apologize.

In my Playground course what I am most struggling with is the first thing... what would be proximal (meaning close to it) in people"s knowledge?

In the first module of that course what we are working to establish is that what we have been considering reality is not what reality is...

In my methodology we distinguish things by what they are not, and not by what they are... because that method is slowly approximate what it is... the strait and narrow method.

I am going to experiment how to apply the zone of proximal development method to my type of learning...

Obviously unless I can invent a way, there isn"t one already, that I can just go and learn.

I just watched another internet marketer"s short video: Integrate or Eliminate... and now I have a new word for this Proximal Zone whatever that is...

If it can be integrated with what you already know, then it is in the proximity, and can enlarge the area that you can build a life on. If it cannot be integrated... then it isn"t going to be useful, maybe ever.

This is a great principle when you need to pick a book to read, a course to take, a relationship to start, a hobby, a new skill, a new behavior.

Unless you can see, easily, that it can be integrated, you are barking up the wrong tree, so just move closer to what you already know, so you can integrate.

The method I illustrate above are a perfect example for integration... even if it is not exact.

Why can"t you learn, and how could you? The single most important factor...

Going from smart to intelligent...

In this article I am biting off more than I can chew... So it will probably make more sense to people who are in my programs, and will make sense once I learn how to speak/write it coherently. ((I was just checking what the dictionary (Tree of Knowledge says about intelligent vs. smart. Turns out that probably intentionally, just to make you less intelligent, lol, not funny, they use the two terms opposite of what they actually measure.

here is just one of the definitions on the internet:

• The difference between smartness and intelligence is mainly behavioral. (truth value of this statement: 20%.)


• While an intelligent person can be smart, but a smart person may not be intelligent. (truth value of this statement: 80%.)


• Intelligence means the ability to acquire information rather rapidly. (truth value of this statement: 30%.)


• Intelligence is a trait a person has since birth. (truth value of this statement: 10%.)

As you can see, there is no clarity, their is no usable knowledge floating around on the internet...  and what is is both misleading and useless...

OK, for the purposes of our conversations, I call what you are born with smart... and what you develop I will call intelligence.

Ultimately what intelligence measures is the structures you have built in your brain that make it possible to learn new things and use them. This is how the behavior effects the number you get.

I have raised my intelligence (my measures, not some test... muscle testing!) from 100 at age 16 to 150 today. Did I get smarter? No. I am as dumb as I was at age 16. But I can do a lot more with that brain of mine... due to all the structures I have built in my brain, intellectual and practical knowledge combined.

The structures are scaffolding, also called furring strips, and in the Learning how to learn course, they are called chunks... these are invisible information structures in the brain making it possible to learn more.

The first such structures develop in the early years, while you are in theta brain state... Depending on how much exposure, stimulus, challenges you had during those years, you got a good head start, or a poor head start.

Being protective or disciplinary about a child, you make the biggest difference in what they are going to be later in life... smart with no intelligence, or smart with amazing intelligence. It is, at this point up to you.

If you are smart but not intelligent, you"ll probably end up with a child like yourself... not happy, not successful, not able to grow.

Many of my students have a higher number for smart than they have for intelligence. One of my students has 100 for smart, and 70 for intelligence. Another student has 100 for smart, and 110 for intelligence. That is the direction you want to move to... your smart measure is fixed... but you can increase your intelligence with tenacity, and persistence.)) What"s missing? Why are so many smart people less than successful?

This is going to be a series.

• This part deals with learning... The brain state conducive to learning...


• Then, in coming parts, we"ll talk about why you can"t learn something, even though you are smart...


• Why you can"t use something that you thought you learned...


• And what you can do so you can go from smart to intelligent.

Intelligence is the ability to get results with the knowledge you got... as opposed to smart: able to get a lot of knowledge...

I just finished the Learning how to learn course

Here are some observations and thoughts that will raise that course"s truth value to 60%. Without these, it is 30%. Not bad... but not good either.

Important distinctions of the course: (there are more, but these are the most important barriers to learning.)

Focused state learning vs. fuzzy state learning

Like with everything, there are distinctions that are in the visible domain of reality, and distinctions that are invisible until they are distinguished...

In the visible domain, the difference is your brain"s attitude about the material, the brain"s approach.

In order to get into the focused state, the brain needs to first force itself to exclude everything else, so it narrows your cone of vision, your cone of hearing, it tries to ignore your back itching... because it is HELLBENT to get what you are intending to get.

I used to get into this mode occasionally, especially when I saw a questionnaire to fill in, a quiz... fear. Fear of making an ass of myself.

And it was, predictably, a self-fulfilling prophecy: in that focused state I could not get the question right (the context), so my answers were predictably wrong.

Or I just simply could not fill out the form... And had a lot of punishments in my life.

At some point, since I started doing this work, and connecting to Source much of the day, this attitude towards questions has disappeared.

So what is there for people who cannot learn despite their efforts to learn?

This is the question I had on my mind when I did some back and forth with one of my students who hasn"t been able to learn the foundations of the Playground course, despite her spending a lot of efforts to do so.

Our exchange ended with me saying "it took me years to get it... so there is no hurry", and her answering "Oh dear!
Well, at least that lessens the fear of falling behind..."

Another one of the distinctions of the Learning how to learn course is "project vs process"

She was, obviously, in project mode. I will get this done, no matter what!

And although she used tools of process learning, she was HELLBENT, and that made her do all the things hellbent people do: force, force, and force some more.

In that state learning is impossible. Literally no new knowledge goes through.

It is like trying to convince a mad drunk that the other person, he is fighting and hellbent to kill, didn"t mean to insult him. He will turn his fury towards you, kill you, and then kill the offending other.

Yeah, and most of you, who even make efforts to learn, do that.

Forceful, beating the material into submission.

You can see it in your breathing. You can see it in your posture. And you are tired, and you are used up, and you are wrong, and an underachiever.

The course, Learning how to learn, has two other distinctions that you try to benefit from: focused brain state, and fuzzy brain state. In essence, how my students interpret it, is...

Narrow cone of vision, nose to the grindstone, and wide cone of vision.

Obviously, like everything on the Internet, the creators of the course approach everything from the visible... and get stuck there.

I don"t know about the focused state, but if I had to rename it: I would call it the hellbent state... forceful.
And the fuzzy brain state: the only brain state where learning happens while you are awake and aware, is the theta brain state...

I learn to move into that brain state in the Photoreading course... for me it is easy. You put your attention, gently, no forcing, on your tangerine spot... the spot where a tangerine would sit if you had one, and keep it there... balancing the flat bottom tangerine.

Anything and everything coming at you while you do that becomes food for your brain. Concepts just rush in, and you don"t have to do anything to learn.

Little kids are in theta brain state, sucking up knowledge like a sponge. It is by design: to live in this world, you have to know a lot of things.

Of course, the brain will not be able to tell if what you are learning is bullsh*t or worth learning, but once the knowledge is there, you can allow the brain to sort it through, separate the wheat from the chaff. ((winnowing: blow a current of air through (grain) in order to remove the chaff.))

You can, maybe, see that being in the forceful "focused" hellbent mode, there is no separation going on... all is treated the same way.

I have been teaching people to get into the theta brain wave mode. And while they can, when I am checking it, they promptly enter focused mode a minute later...

So most people cannot learn, cannot stay "loose and yet awake and aware", they only know two modes, sleepy and forceful.

If you learned to feel your feelings, your physical feelings, you would be able to tell where your brain is at...

In focused mode the gentle pressure is in the front part of the brain, meaning in the front half... not just the forehead... the front half.

That is the mind"s location where all forcing comes from.

And when you are in fuzzy mode, you are balancing a tangerine that is about to slid off, backwards... so the area where the tangerine would be, signals a gentle pressure.

A want time student and friend used to put a rubber band to the tangerine spot, and the small weight on his skull directed his attention. So he managed to be in theta brain state most of the time.

But when, in classes he wanted to answer an question, he slid into mind-mode, and almost always said something stupid.

It was the next step that he could not wrap himself around: stay in fuzzy mode.

It happens that in fuzzy mode, the eyes relax as well, and widen the field of vision, inside and outside, so they can see more than just what is at hand... that is what allows the "winnowing" to happen: other stuff already in the brain informs the brain whether what is new, the incoming, is wheat of chaff.

Of course, most of what a regular person has in their brain is Tree of Knowledge, so 95% chaff... so being it theta mode, and pondering mode, while you walk, while you are in the shower, etc. you can get rid of a lot of the chaff... if your pondering is in theta mode.

I have a student who says he is pondering, but my hunch is that he is forcing pondering, because his view is narrow, and he never even attempts to check the veracity of his convictions.

He is the kind of guy who comes to every call with a new conviction, and doesn"t even have a question why he is so convinced about all of them... and haven"t come to a coherent picture yet.

And he hasn"t... and if he continues to do pondering as a forceful exercise, he never will.

Some soul corrections really struggle with exactly that... being able or being willing to see the big picture where it is obvious, to the brain, what is the direction to go, what is the real issue, what there is to do.

At the end of the connected meditations, the brain calisthenics exercises, I always asked the participants to open their eyes, and gently look around in the room... without naming what their eyes looked at.

In theta brain mode you can do that, in mind brain mode, you have to... meaning: no mystery, no openness, you already know, you are closed to new input.

I am now looking through old articles, to see what else I have been able to see about you that would, maybe, help me to help you to become flexible and become a person who can learn... and enjoy learning.

If you read this article attentively, you could see in the paired distinction, the either/or distinctions above, what states you are unable to learn.

1. focused mode
2. project mode
3. narrow cone of vision/fear mode/concern mode

I didn"t talk much about the project mode... so here it goes. In project mode you are more interested in getting to the other side of the project, than the process of going through it.

I call that mode homework mode.

Full of haste, forcing, and ultimately a definite distaste for the doing part.

If you are in project mode/homework mode, you can"t learn. Because you cannot keep your attention on what you are doing: you only want to get to the other end.

• Most people even eat this way. They go to a restaurant, order some expensive food, and then rush through it.


• Most people drink this way: they just want the buzz.


• Most people have sex this way: just want to have the 3-second experience at the end.


• Most people travel this way: they just want to show their travel pictures to everyone... not go through the experience themselves.

It is an unproductive way to approach life.

Older people say: life got faster... but life is not faster... it goes a minute every minute... except you are not there for the minute, you are for whatever you aim for.

When you go to bed, you just want to fall asleep... so you miss the beauty and enjoyment of the being alone in the dark, finally being able to be yourself phase.

Oh well...

OK, here are the elements of being and staying in theta brain mode:

Entering theta brain wave

1. locate your tangerine spot.
2. put all your attention on it to activate. Press with your attention... it is like a switch
3. you know your tangerine spot is active if and when it buzzes (or you feel a gentle pressure in the bones of you skull).
4. keep it on... if accidentally you lose it, just return, gently, and activate it again.

use this state to

1. listen to videos, audios, lectures, webinars
2. read articles
4. read books
5. in your interactions.

Being in theta state allows you to stay out of your mind, as long as you are in theta state... it"s obvious... the buzzing T-spot.

no labeling, naming, comparing
wide cone of vision
perception mode
the VOR ((Very high frequency (VHF) omnidirectional range))... super awareness: FUZZY focus + wide cone of vision

And a video on my subscribers" site:

https://www.yourvibration.com/subscribers/index.php?/register/AOQbj8

If you are already a member, you can just log in and go to the page.

Learning to learn... how you learn makes all the difference... What is the theta state of mind?

Some days I just can"t write. I don"t want to write.

Some days it doesn"t make any sense to me to write. It feels like I have done all I will ever do, and it hasn"t made a difference.

One of the main stumbling block to me being able to make a difference for you, is how you listen.

You listen with a certain economy. You want to make sure that what you hear is relevant, what you hear is true, what you hear is worth listening to.

How do you make the decision what to FOCUS on?

You go to the only place you have: your mind.

The mind is a storage facility. I contains all the things you have put, consciously or unconsciously, into it.

Up till the age of about 4 years old, you walk around in "learning mode", which is the Theta brain wave state. It is also the brain wave state of hypnosis. In theta brain state your mind is inactive, and only your consciousness is awake.


In theta brain state you have no filters, you have no barriers to what is put into your mind.

You are like a sponge, and everything you"ll ever know, more or less, is now stored in that mind of yours. You never organized that information, you never pondered about it, you never discarded the useless, and strengthen the useful. It is in complete disarray...

So when I talk to you, you go to your mind and check if you have that knowledge already. If it agrees with what I said.

Because what I say is always new, you always come up with a "no". You cannot fit it in with what you already know, because it doesn"t fit.

So you aren"t even touched by what I say... It"s a shower that doesn"t get you wet, unless...

Unless you listen in theta mode.

Entering theta mode is surprisingly easy: you connect to your Tangerine Spot.

As long as you are connected, you have no access to the mind. You are either in the mind, i.e. Beta state, or you are in Theta state.

The art is to allow. Allow what is coming in.

To allow, you need to trust. Trust me and trust yourself.

The lack of trust activates barriers, filters, and there you are: unable to learn anything that would make a difference for you.

What I am teaching is not book knowledge: I am teaching the building blocks of a higher consciousness.

What I teach is useless in the mind: because your mind is low vibration.

The quality and combination of your mind knowledge has a 1% truth value.

Hundreds of people contact me for advice how to raise their vibration. Why? Because the way you live, advised by the 1% truth value mind, is horrible.

You feel horrible. You are not happy. You are not free to be yourself, you don"t know how to be with others in a way that is freeing and enjoyable.

You are trapped in a low vibration hell.

And no matter how many articles you read, how many times, it won"t make a difference, if you are reading with the mind.

All my wisdom will be a shower that doesn"t make you wet.

So, if I want to make a difference, I have to teach you to listen/read in theta mode.

You"ll have a long road to hoe to be able to stay in that state, long enough, and consistently enough: you have all those years that you survived.

So the selfish gene, the pull of the homeostasis will be working against you.

But if you never start, you never reach.

I"ll make a video to help you find your tangerine spot, and to put your attention on it.

You"ll feel the buzz/pressure on that spot, so it"s easy to know you are connected.

The feeling lasts as long as you are there. I am writing this articles in theta mode... I live in theta mode. It is possible.

Once you can do it, it will be up to you to turn it on... Most of you will pick and choose. What chooses is the mind... And unfortunately the mind isn"t interested in you learning anything. Or doing anything new.

We shall see what you are made of. It"s the survival of the most adaptable.

PS: There is a speed reading method, called PhotoReading. It has a part where you enter theta state, and allow consciousness to do the reading. You don"t even see the page, you make your eyes fuzzy. And yet, when you test your knowledge, surprisingly you discover that you know that stuff... even though you didn"t actually read it. YOU. Consciousness did. Of course the you you refer to is your mind. That is what 99.99% of people do: they identify their self with their mind.

This is why humanity is stuck on a low vibrational level, a low consciousness where people fight, argue, resist, go to war, try to control and dominate, and feel horrible in the process.

What I do is attempting to get you out of your mind, so you can grow out of this misery.

PPS: Many people have discovered that in theta state you learn better. But in my direct experience, adding guiding audio meditation to your learning process, so you enter theta state is harmful: you train yourself to depend on the audio.

Also, thinking about theta waves as a closed eye meditation tool is like living life for the weekends, 90% misery 10% bliss, nothing in between.

Some gurus talk about meditative living, especially Zen. What they aren"t telling you is that meditative living happens in theta mode. You can, with enough practice, live in that mode. Chop wood, carry water.

Chopping wood and carrying water in beta mode is hell... boring, tedious, death warmed over.

Of course there needs to be a lot of unlearning. When things bother you, irritate you, threaten you, it is because on your level of consciousness, on your level of knowledge, the world is a frightening place.

In my programs you unlearn b.s. like that, false knowledge, that keeps you on constant alert. You learn new ways of looking at reality. And I also activate spiritual capacities: truth be told: without them nothing much will happen. Even if you manage to walk around in meditative state.

In my programs theta brain state is used to allow you to learn new things that will make a difference for you. So you can start growing, so you can start become a happier, more fulfilled person.

The goal of learning to enter and stay in theta brain state is so you can get wet from the lifegiving shower I am giving you. Finally.

Activate your divinity... restore your Self to wholeness

Things happen... They happen when you are young, and when you are little, a little boy or a little girl, every happening is very very very significant, and everything that happens seems to say something about you, and about your chances to make it... to live, to be well, to be loved, appreciated, considered valuable, etc.

You seem to be completely at the effect of everything and everyone, with a very limited number of moves of your own... you can cry, you can refuse to eat, you can talk, but they all seem to be ineffective: you have no power.

Then you grow up, and things still happen to you. And you still the effect... not the cause of any of it, or not much of it.

You are reduced to the one who can talk about it, but not the one who caused it, or can even contemplate causing anything.

And that is the typical, 99.99% reality for people on the planet.

In every interaction, in every incident, some of your Self got broken off of the whole Self, and got denied by you.



According to some research, the energy of the Self is like a donut or torus. I am saying this because in the video I am giving you as a gift, I will mention the donut... so I want you to know what i am talking about.

The fragments of the donut, the Self, are trapped in the incidents, or alternatively are denied by you, but they still hang on a cord, sucking the aliveness out of your being.

Those denied fragments of the Self act like attachments.

To become a full person again, like when you were born, the fragments need to be returned to the donut. It is a process, and it is not child"s play. It is also highly interactive.

The skeleton of the donut is like a scaffold, like a trelliswork, a frame, that the elements of it are capacities.

In order for a lost fragment to adhere again to make the donut, your Self, restored, there need to be capacities there to hold the piece in place... or they will fly off again.

The capacities needed were the capacities that were missing at the time of the incident.

For most people, in my experience, the number of capacities that are missing is low... 2-3 capacities are missing.

A capacity is an ability that is embedded and either active or inactive in the DNA.

The economy of life is that any part of the DNA that is not used, is shut down, and life needs a serious amount of convincing to open an inactive capacity... the person needs to prove to life that they need it.

Which means that you can use an ability even if you don"t have the DNA capacity open. by acting as if...

Example, surfacing in the video, is the capacity to trust... ((

http://evp-50116959de4b9-dd521b5ed563ee25508422182c681a30.s3.amazonaws.com/building-the-frameword-for-integration.mp3

http://evp-50116959de4b9-dd521b5ed563ee25508422182c681a30.s3.amazonaws.com/building-the-frameword-for-integration.mp4

))

Trust inner guidance, for example.

People for whom this capacity is missing, habitually talk themselves out of trusting inner guidance, so the capacity cannot turn on.

But they could listen to inner guidance, and say, "heck with it, I am going to go with my gut" and take the action the gut suggests... do or not do something or other.

Continued practice of "act as if" you had trust, actually turns on the capacity of trust... and it gets easier.

That capacity can now provide an adherence point, an attachment point for the restored fragments of self, providing a chance for the Self to become whole and complete.

Another capacity that is missing for everyone is the capacity to take responsibility for what they can take responsibility for, what belongs to them.

Even seeing what belongs to you is beyond most people, because the habitual attitude of "I am an effect, I am powerless" is stronger than the desire to become whatever you claim you want to become... whole and complete? happy? productive? famous? significant?

While you attempt to activate responsibility, you, concurrently, at the same time, need to strengthen your soul"s desire...

The Activate Divinity course is working on both ends... and it can get the job done... but ultimately that is up to the participant.

The video I show you at the end of this article was the recording of an energy meditation session, a session that by luck only participants of the Activate Divinity course participants showed up... so we could have an ad hoc session of that course instead.

Unscheduled, unexpected, and brilliant. The timing of that session was about 18 days into the course, a seven months long course, by the way.

I am diagnosing and teaching at the same time.

I am not showing an "episode" that is later: you would not be able to relate...

But being at the beginning of the journey, you"ll be able to see yourself in every one of the participants or some of them.

The course is available online. It includes a one-on-one diagnostic session to identify an incident that is dominant in making you the powerless individual you are now.

I have chunked the course to four modules, so you will make it easier to commit to it... once you have

Online Workshop: Activate Your Divinity

Module 1

Learn how you can avert disaster, or get good luck come your way. The luck method. This is a workshop where you learn methods of the magicians.

Available for purchase now:

Module 2

More magic methods: you"ll be amazed how well these work on upsets, disagreements, or feelings of overwhelm or feeling mistreated. We go full tilt boogie in this one, you"ll laugh, you"ll cry, but you"ll love it

Module 3

Let"s find how come you got to be the way you are. There is an incident in every person"s life where they went from divine to ordinary, from beautiful to ugly. We"ll find that incident and do some voodoo on it, so it will turn you back to divine and beautiful. We"ll reclame your lost fragment of divinity, so you can become more whole and more complete.

This is, normally, when you have your diagnostic one-on-one session

Module 4

Let"s completely disengage the machine: the break for freedom. In this session we"ll do the process on as many fragments as you gathered, so you can re-ignite your fire, your passion for life, and your love for yourself.

What is YOUR enough? Or get a clear picture of why you are where you are...

Enough ((enough=as much or as many as required. We"ll see that by whom it is required, and for what it is required will change enough a lot.))

I remember, long time ago, writing an article to introduce the concept "enough" and one of my students got it and it propelled her to previously unimaginable heights of vibration.

This was years ago... I will probably have to look up that old article to remember what I wrote... it must have been profound. But I"ll refrain... instead I am going to look how is the state of "enough" among my students and maybe myself. ((After I finished this article, I did look up that old article, and it"s brilliant. I could not say it better today. It also talks about our newest recognized challenge: you don"t know how to learn anything... so you can"t grow. Go and read it if you are a friend of yourself.

https://www.yourvibration.com/614/equals-takes-thing-way/ ))



I set my standards real high, and then decide what percentage of that is enough. ((I like the Pareto squared idea... pick and do earnestly the 20 percent of the 20 percent, to produce 64% of all the results...

If you set your 100% high enough, your 64 percent will be way higher than your peers" 100%... but it will take you less time, less resources, to accomplish it. More skills, more discipline, but less time.

But if you are like the garden variety dude for whom looking good and making it is enough, you"ll be at the bottom of the barrel, guaranteed. Your enough is not enough.))

I am what you could call the anti-perfectionist.

Perfection is an ideal that can never be achieved. So one could say that a perfectionist is a racketeer: on the surface she wants, claims she wants perfection, but behind the scenes she conspires to prove that she can"t. Or he... no gender preferences in liars.

I get stuff done. I have systems: it takes time and thought to design those. I have routines. I keep several plates spinning, and add energy to each one of them, every single day, so they keep on spinning. Those plates make up my life... so why would I want to drop them?

I never lean too close to any of those plates, any of those issues... because I have learned that when I do, tragedy or near tragedy follows.

I maintain my center... whereas when you lean too close to a plate, you lose your center, you lose yourself, and something takes over that is, in my humble opinion, can be called death.

So no concern, no relationship, no desire, no activity deserves my whole life... and not my death... so I maintain my center, I maintain my distance, and I maintain my flexibility in my cone of vision: I do what I learned in architecture school: I rapidly alternate between fuzzy eyes and detailed sharp view... so I never actually step out of the big picture.

Enough, learning, and your soul correction

On reading the posts in the discussion forum about learning to learn, I am starting to see that one of the main areas your soul correction is limiting you is learning.

Your soul correction is a lot like a slope on your path, that predictably pulls you towards some behavior and attitude that is going to be a determinant in your life path, in your quality of life, in the height you"ll reach in self-realization.

And they are not occasional influences: they are a constant... that is why soul correction is like a slope... no matter where on the slope you are, the pull is the same, to do something unproductive, to have an unproductive attitude, to be pulled back.

I watch people as they read their soul correction, and they nod, or not, but I see no sudden clarity... oh, this is why I am where I am? this is why I do what I do? None of that... :-(

I wonder if they get that it is the slope... and that they are not hapless, helpless, predetermined, powerless, fixed... that they are, instead, unconscious.

Because if they got that it"s the slope... which is a circumstance, and environment, not who you are, inherently and permanently, then they would, if they were awake, start developing strategies to counter the pull of the slope, strategies to do what their life-force wants them to do to self-realize... in spite of the pull of the slope.

It may be easier to see on less subtle examples, that have nothing to do with soul correction, but are as circumstantial as that.

Let"s take dyslexia, a brain disorder, that cannot be cured, that makes the perception of spatial and directional position either misfire or not fire at all, making up and down, left and right, north and south jumble, reverse without warning, and also, the tip of the iceberg, make letters, numbers look like another letter, so you misread a lot of stuff.

You can see that dyslexia makes you not so sure about yourself, and makes you not want to read because it is not reliable therefore not pleasurable.

That is the slope.

• 93% of dyslexics are underachievers: achieve positions and results in life below their capabilities.


• 1% of dyslexics are extremely high achievers.

That 1% number is ten times higher than high achievers in the general population... so what is going on?

When you know the slope, and you know it intimately, and consider it a challenge to overcome, once and for all, the underachievers consider themselves powerless in the face of the challenge. The high achievers take on the challenge.

Face the tiger

Remember the tiger story? The kids asked what they do when it comes to one of the frequent tiger attacks on their village in India. Here are their answers:

• Hide from the tiger - the little kids


• Outwit, outsmart the tiger - a little bigger kids


• Outrun the tiger - even bigger kids


• Face the tiger - the adult

If you are an underachiever, you can find yourself on this chart.

Now, if you look at everyone"s life condition: they all have, they all live on a slippery slope. What could be the strategies of different maturity stages, similar to the tiger story?

• Ignore and be victim of the slope... I can"t help it. You see? I have been right about it all along


• Move sideways and act surprised when things don"t work
  Look ma, I try!


• Try for a little bit and slip back... the Sisyphus. this also includes self-justification and blaming


• Say: oh, this is what is working against me? good... let"s take it on! Develop strategies and win

If you wanted to get sophisticated, you would find all six "payoffs" from the racket invisible dynamic...

The complaint is: you never amount to much
The attitude is: it"s happening to me, I am powerless
The payoff: as varied as people are, in essence six...
The cost: you never amount to much.

So high achievers are people who consider that playing a big game in life is more important than the puny payoff the racket offers.

They said: WHATEVER IT TAKES

Humans are potentially the top if "creation". Potentially.

What makes individuals get to the top is this "whatever it takes".

It is a life-philosophy.

When I picked "Whatever works" as my higher power in a 12-step program, where traditionally, by design, people pick god as their higher power, I wrote my history.

When it is god who is your higher power, you expect god to do whatever it takes to give you what you need.

That robs you of your own power, robs you of the life-philosophy to DO whatever works... because you always expect god to do it... Like you expect the fireplace to give you wood, reading to give you pleasure, learning to give you knowledge.

You see that it is a wordview... a mindset... and 99.99% of humanity is trapped in it.

I know one guy, Roy H Williams, who is religious, but not trapped... A high achiever.

His soul correction is "The Big Picture"... that is his slippery slope, the tendency to go too close to whatever he is looking at.

Now, I don"t know his personal story, but I can tell you, his life, his articles, his books are all about the big picture.

His vibration, consequently, is 400, because with every breath he takes, he expands his cone of vision, so he can connect dots further and further apart, so everything in his direct view can be in a context way larger than how "normal" people would view it.

And ENOUGH for him is very different from YOUR enough.

What is missing for every soul correction is this habit of looking at things in their context, in the big picture.

• In the "normal" view, your narrow concern about yourself, or what you want, occupies your whole visual field, so you are wholly and fully stuck with it...


• In the expanded view, your narrow concern becomes just a small part, and you can start seeing the before, the after, the cost, the consequences of your actions... if...

Now, there is an if there. If you can see what you want to get out of life inside your visual field.

• High achievers said: I want the big game.


• I said: I want to be the vehicle for the spirit"s flying.

If you have never said anything bigger than "I want to look good and make it through life" then nothing bigger will show up in your visual field.

If not, you are a 99.99%-er... But it is not too late.

I am not talking about a pipe-dream, a fantasy. I am talking about a future that you are willing and ready to do WHATEVER IT TAKES.

By the way, it"s a muscle that has atrophied for you.

Everyone is born with that muscle... but it is not used much.

The 20-day skill learning challenge is one easy way to bring that muscle back to life, little by little.

I watch people"s "promises" and I can see the size of their visual field.

I will practice X for 20 minutes a day... Typical for someone who thinks they already know. Or that knowing is understanding.

Instead of learning to learn, the skill, I will practice the skill I haven"t learned yet on something else... A nice, elegant sideways move: no results, ever... Can you guess the soul correction of the person who said this?

It"s a skill learning challenge. A skill that can be demonstrated, used, transferred to other areas of life... and you have degrees in learning the skill.

Just before I left Hungary (37 years ago almost to the day) I took a course on learning to drive in slippery road conditions. On ice, on black ice, in snow. I practiced doing the required moves that were entirely counter-intuitive, i.e. counter-slippery-slope.

I got quite good at it, and in the 37 years since then, I had only one accident, my car slipped off the road into the snowbank... because I was speeding on my way to New York City.

So I got good but not the best.

In my many years in snowy Northeast living, I have seen hundreds of cars fly off the road... slide into other cars...

So my skill level is quite exceptional.

I saw the importance of learning, and I did it... I saw the importance of conscious practicing, and I did it.

But... here is that pesky but again.

I saw that I"d better get ready for the future, an unknown entity, because I most likely will need it.

I never wanted to live a small life... I always wanted to be seen, to be considered significant, to leave a mark. How? I didn"t know, I didn"t care.

That was my big thing... leaving a mark.

And that was worth for me to do WHATEVER IT TAKES.

Did I invent it? No, it is the soul"s desire, and I accepted it as mine.

What desire does your soul have that you have been denying?

Your Biggest Pain Is Your Biggest Blessing, or How To Awaken The Soul"s Desire

In this 2011 article I will show you how I connected to Soul, and through that connection how I have been able to awaken the desire to connect.

As I have said in other articles, desire is necessary to open the spigot of light... Desire opens and closes this spigot, and you can control desire.

The biggest issue is to awaken this desire: it is not active in Soul.

All the modalities, all the methodologies that talk about soul"s desire, try to cause your conscious self"s desire, and that desire doesn"t open the spigot. This is how I did it...

In 2010, October, I took a program, called the Landmark Forum, for the 20th time.

Why on earth would I do something for 20 times? Well, there was something that I wanted to uncover, that in all the Landmark programs I had never able to get a glimpse of. I wanted to discover how come that in spite of all my talents, in spite of all my diligence, I was never able to stay above "just over broke."



In addition to solving that issue, I had another agenda: I felt inspired to be the guardian, to be the eyes and the ears of another participant in that program, who was deaf and blind. The commitment to be there for her so, in spite of her limitations she gets a new view at the underbelly of life. At the same time I would get what I was there to get, seemed like the perfect setup. Complicated enough to confuse the forces that keep life the same.

Desire for the sake of sharing

You see, even then, I knew that if you are there only for what you want, for yourself, the spigots of heaven won"t open. But I was there also for her, for what may be possible by opening her mind to never before heard dimensions.

At some point, in the Landmark Forum, the leader was talking about forgiving people in our lives, even if they didn"t deserve it. Forgiving them for our own sake, so we stop eating the poison we"ve prepared for them. ((We all know that when we are angry or resentful, or we even hate, we are the one who suffers. It can be expressed poetically: We are eating the poison we made for them hoping that they die from it... but alas, they probably don"t even know you are angry. Or don"t care. Or can"t do anything about it.))

Something got me out of my chair, and out of line, without being called on, I blurted out, "like your parents"

He asked me to come to the front, and we started a conversation. I was quite reluctant, I didn"t think the "newbies" in the room were ready to hear my story. But the leader was persistent, so as cryptically as I could, I told them the story how I was raped by a drunk stranger at the age of 3 and a half, how they found me lying in my blood, how they washed me up, and took me home to my mother who didn"t even look at me, but instead, with disgust on her face, said: "You are a whore!" and turned away.

As a 3-year old I didn"t know the meaning of the word. I only knew that somehow I was a worthless person, and I didn"t even know why.

I cried in front of the 100 people of the course. I wasn"t in 2010. I was back in 1950... little girl, curly hair, crushed.

The leader asked me if I was willing to forgive my mother. I could feel the "no" in my chest. I could even catch the thought "If I forgive her, more horrible things will happen to me" so I said, out loud: NO!

He said then, the leader: "For the little girl, who didn"t have a chance to grow up, who haven"t had a chance to have fun, who could never see the light of day since that day 60 years ago, would you be willing to forgive your mother? You are responsible to give a good life to that little girl!"

"What little girl? I asked sharply. There is no little girl..." but as I was saying that, something started to stir.

The rest of that day I felt that stirring constantly. I located it over the left side of my body, much like a little baby that you are burping... also the same size. "Wow, I think I am finally going crazy!"

For the next few weeks I started to look at my activities through the filter: What will the "little one" say about that.

I discovered the fun of eating. I discovered the fun of the weather. I discovered not being alone.

For example, standing in front of the refrigerator, I was talking to the "little one" about what"s there, explaining, rejoicing in experiencing the tastes, the textures of the stuff... without even touching anything.

When I went to sleep, I made sure I slept on my right side, so I wouldn"t crush her. I shared my 60 years with her, and it was warm, intimate, and fun. Teary fun... not ha-ha. But fun, nevertheless.

I was clear that it was my soul. I was clear that it was up to me what kind of life my soul had. I was clear that I was the boss, and that I had a choice every boss had: to just use the soul, or tell her to shut up and stay quiet, or allow her to grow, flourish, and have her brilliance liberated. I also, somehow knew that through this soul I can talk to -- to whatever is greater than either of us... Creator? Source? God? I did not know.

But as I was giving more life to the "little one" I was feeling an awakening desire to connect to that whatever, and really connect.

Caring for the "little one" was like a walking meditation, a life wholly directed from within, not without.

The urge to read everything I could put my hands on, the urge to buy new stuff, the urge to be everything for everybody, fell away like a tattered coat: I didn"t need those to protect me from being myself any more.

I spent time to connect, ask for what I needed, negotiating how I wanted my answers to be delivered to me.

We, the "little one" who by this time wasn"t so little, wasn"t so helpless, we were eager to connect, eager to be lead and guided, eager to find new ways the answer came, like an Easter Egg Hunt of our own.

Emails calling to be read. My hand irresistibly drawn to books I bought but never read, movies I never thought I would ever watch.

Every step of the way I could observe as my ego-self, the smart, the brilliant, the know-it-all was bristled over the audacity of such suggestions that came, and every time I could observe this reaction as a wise parent observes an unruly child that throws a tamper tantrum every time it doesn"t get its way. No argument, no rising emotions, just observing it, like you watch the weather that will come and go. This too shall pass.

It is clear, by this point, that there are at least three of us sharing this life, the soul, the ego, and I came to call the part that took care of the soul, the Conscious Mind, the boss.

And the I, the Boss, was really interested in finding a way of causing real change for people.

At that point I had been a "transformational coach" like all the rest: causing "flash in the pan" results. Results that didn"t stick. Changes in worldview that didn"t stay. Changes in attitudes that turned back to the old ways as soon as you took your eyes off them.

I asked for guidance for that: to find something that can change human beings, so they can be happy, peaceful, love each other, grow, be brilliant... you get the picture. Something that will last.

The journey to the solution wasn"t what I had in mind. I wanted a coaching technique, and truth be told, I wanted to keep it for myself, to make me and MY clients rich... But what I wanted didn"t happen.

Instead I"ve been guided to World Transformation for no pay. To causing the ascension of humanity, for no pay.

What I wasn"t prepared for, what I am not prepared for is the fact that human being doesn"t want to ascend. That human being doesn"t even know what desire is. It knows want, urges, lust, craving, but it doesn"t know desire.

That human being gives lipservice to soul, but they, like me, have kept their soul in the dark, oppressed, ignored, neglected, and dying.

That human being is more interested in the drama of love, of connecting, the drama of ascension, reading about it, talking about it, watching a movie about it, than actually doing it, living it, surrendering to it.

If you are the rare exception, this method of connecting to your inner being, is an excellent way to start.

Start with the most painful memory that you have. That memory will be your access point.

They say that "it is darkest before dawn" and what they mean is that the moments before dawn are the darkest.

But it is a misnomer. Before means also "in front of".

Your darkest is covering up, is standing before the Light. That is your entry point. It may hurt... but not as much as a life lived without the Light and without caring for your soul.

Learning to Learn on Coursera.org

Learning to Learn on Coursera.org, the missing piece of the puzzle, especially if you combine it with the Playground: the partner calls, and the skill learning challenge.

I"ve completed the first two weeks of study on coursera, with 99% effectiveness measured by the tests: only two mistakes total.. But did I learn the material? ((I am finding that I am still having some issues with the vocabulary, so no, I haven"t))

Why didn"t I take a whole week to do a week"s worth of study?

I am like a person who after weeks lost in the desert, finds good drinking water... Hungry, thirsty, excited.

I am seeing that I"ve never actually learned how to learn, I have been just lucky that some of the ways I was taught used the concepts to teach/learn effectively but didn"t teach them. Why give away all the power, right?

I have achieved a certain level of unconscious competence in certain disciplines, but I never had to go through the phase of conscious competence.

In areas of study, where I have been unsuccessful, I had no knowledge of how to learn to help me, nothing to dig me out of the rut I found myself in.

I am, I have been entirely dependent on the teacher providing the methodology and the practicing opportunity for me to produce the results.

Now, that is a tragedy, in a way, but nothing compared to the tragedy  of my lack of skill, knowledge, concepts, ideas, that would make me the kind of teacher where the student can go from unconscious incompetence to unconscious competence, without having to learn another course, a course on how to learn. I am setting a goal to become that kind of teacher...

Most of my students never learned in their past successfully, let alone learn something on their own successfully.

And yet, I have been expecting them to do just that... and of course, being frustrated: they don"t even understand the concept of learning, let alone do it.

Two days ago "the gods smiled at me", and lead me to a course on learning how to learn. I found a video on youtube... ((

Barbara Oakley talk at google
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vd2dtkMINIw

Barbara Oakley TED talk
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O96fE1E-rf8

)) that grabbed my attention.

Teachers, leaders are called bad when they change the rules... and I don"t mind being called a bad teacher: unless you learn to learn, you"ll never get the results from my courses that I promise.

Does that make my sales letter a lie? Maybe... And maybe not.

The prevailing mindset (mindset is a fixed way of thinking about something that is bigger, richer, and 90% of the time different from how you think about it) is that hearing something, reading something, will gel into knowledge.

When I listen to the partner calls of the participants in my Playground program, I find that they are like the kids who jump into the water before they learn to swim.

They actually do NO WORK on their own before they get to the call. So what is the result? two people who don"t know what they are supposed to know to do the work of practicing, so instead they have a heart to heart conversation... musings, philosophical, and irrelevant to the work.. and nothing gets learned.

So if you look, put yourself in their place... what else could you do?

0. Absorb the vocabulary... notice that words are used differently in a new learning: they are distinctions here, precise and most likely different from what they mean in the big world...

Without a working and precise vocabulary you are fish out of water.

Many of my students, when they listen to me, they "translate" what I say to a vocabulary that is neither precise, nor useful, and then they will never get what I am talking about... not the big picture, not any of it... They enjoyed the talk, but learned nothing.

Skills are made up of words... even manual activities like brain surgery.

Unless the surgeon has the exact names of the tools it asks for, the surgery will not be successful, because asking for that little shiny thing with the curved blade will not quite does it... right?

Words are the first level of knowledge chunks that you regularly miss.

• 1. In order to create working chunks of knowledge, first you need to understand what you are learning, and see it in the big picture: how it relates to things you know, like your life, or something you have learned before.
  
  Without understanding you will, maybe, go through the motions of learning, but it will result in useless chunks of useless knowledge, that don"t gel into anything coherent.


• 2. Then comes the learning of the elements of the chunk, the content: definitions, lists, symptoms, etc.


• 3. Then comes the most important missing ingredient: recall... being able to say it/do it without looking at the notes, gradually and eventually accurately.

If nothing more happened in the partner calls, I would be still happy, ok, learning happened... But or course, there is more.

The proof of the pudding is in eating it... unless you can use the "chunks" or distinctions in your real life: recognize where it can be used, and actually use it to achieve real success, you still haven"t learned it.

Here is an example: I used the "ouch, that hurts" distinction the other day, when a woman, in spite of my urging, didn"t answer my question. I said: Ouch, that hurts... and stood up and moved to another bench...

To my utter amazement, the woman, maybe for the first time ever, looked at me, and I saw recognition in her eyes. She complimented me on my haircut, and wished me a good week...I felt that she saw me...

I suddenly felt like a person... not that chunk of meat and bones, she had seen before, and had felt a slight disgust about...

Without actually using that "chunk" in real life, I would have never known to what degree people treat me like a thing... and would have never known how to turn it around.

I also saw how I often treat people as things... and I saw how that feels. Ouch, that hurts... lol

So you see, a lot of the work has to get done in your real life, between you and you, between you and the people in your life.

And then you can bring it, as a share, to the partner calls.

Sharing as a transformational AND learning tool

Sharing is different from talking about it. Sharing is giving it over to another person, like you share your birthday cake by giving someone a slice. Unless they get it for themselves, you didn"t share.

In my work, you share transformation. Transformation is getting a new view of life, and in that new view things from the past disappear, and new actions become possible that come from that new view.

An effective share has a format... Everything else is emoting, storytelling, conversation. Not bad, but not what you want in my programs.

Why? On one hand a share looks generous, and it may be. But the purpose, the goal of the share is to make the action you took instinctual. In fact, it is a learning tool. Without it all the learning you have done before disappears and you are left with an unaltered view of life and yourself, as if nothing had happened.

And this is what"s been happening. Not just in my programs, in all transformational programs. In Landmark Education, one half of one percent of the participants learn to share their transformation.

Sharing also causes transformation... so don"t skip it. An effective share is built like this:

• 1. Before the article/distinction/principle life was like this


• 2. Then I got the distinction X... explain distinction


• 3. After the distinction this is what life became... an incident that shows that the distinction/principle actually changed something when applied.

When you share, you practice and deepen your knowledge of the distinction. And you keep on re-opening that new view of life that is the key to your transformed life.

Here is how I explained in an email to a student who wanted to learn to share... so far unsuccessfully.

I used to have daily struggle with my daughter. She misbehaved, she threatened to kill herself, she told me she hated me. It was hell.

Then I learned a distinction: I learned that I have been looking at her as MY DAUGHTER, a role, who is supposed to behave in a way to make my life easy, and make me proud. But that is just one way to see... I could see her as a person, who has as much right to life as I do... and the DAUGHTER role is limiting her in her freedom to be herself... to be a person.

I decided to try it on: treat her as a person.

and then you can tell what happened... and what would have happened without the distinction in a real situation.

Sharing, using that formula to share is like a recall exercise: you cannot do it unless you have the distinction down pat.

So even though you feel that you have learned, you have the illusion of knowledge, not being able to recall wakes you up that in fact you haven"t learned it: more work needs to be invested.

For example, a student, after watching the hour-long video that introduces the concepts of learning to learn, used the word "chunking" incorrectly. He is now, possibly, fancying himself fully equipped to know how to learn...

And that is not an isolated example: I do measure to what degree you are delusional about your knowledge, about your abilities, about your attitudes in the Starting Point Measurements.

Any number above 10% is a reason for concern, and indicates a serious issue with your ability to see things accurately, with being astute.

Your actions will come from what you see, but if what you see is delusional, all or most of your actions will be inaccurate... and you can see what kind of life that leads to...

PS: Some people opt to have coaching calls with me.

Those are quite expensive. The assumption is that you"ll learn what I know, learn what I teach through listening... but that has never happened and probably never will.

All coaching calls introduce concepts, principles, distinctions, that need to be learned... If you can"t learn them, don"t know how learn them, or won"t do what it takes to learn them, your net benefit from a coaching call is meager... Because it is not more valuable than reading a book.

Now I am starting to understand why people thank me for my time at the end of a call... they got my time, and that"s that.

Similarly, reading a book doesn"t teach you anything. Watching a video or 10 doesn"t teach you anything. ((Of course, if you are already an expert in the field of the book, a book and a video does teach you... In fields where I have enough chunks of knowledge, health, transformation, energies, everything teaches me, because I have chunks of knowledge by the thousands... and I have the art of transferring and connecting the dots. I am starting to see, it would be better and more accurate to say: connecting the chunks... chunks of knowledge.

But in areas where I only have a few, maybe no chunks, reading does nothing to create learning for me.))

Teaching happens when you learn. When you use the principles and the practice of learning.

For actual learning to take place, the ideal proportion of input (a course, a video, a book, an article) and implementation, ie doing what it takes to learn it is 1:6. In certain disciplines, like marketing, it is 1:10.

Meaning: you get one hour instruction, and then you spend 6-10 hours to turn it into knowledge you can use.

You think it is over the top? Exaggeration?

Not really.

In architecture school, we had 44 hours of instruction a week, and 90 hours homework assignments a week. Why not 1:6? Because many of the classes were also recall or practice, not lectures Also... There were not enough hours in the week to sleep as well. A week is 168 hours long...

The more you have learned in life, the faster the learning process will be, because you have useful chunks of accurate knowledge that are on the ready...

But beware of the inaccurate chunks of "knowledge"... they will get you stuck every time.

Here is the link to Coursera.org"s free Learning to learn course

I have also opened a new thread in the discussions forum for the Learning to learn course. Of course, you need to register to post...

The straitjacket of your identity

The identity you invented is preventing you from living the life you want ((I could have written about many more ways one defines one"s identity... When an actor is pigeonholed in a type of role they did well... the bad guy, the guy with the guile... Or when a person is only seen as their occupation... a teacher, a mechanic, a janitor, a politician... and need to deal with the limiting options that gives them and their life. Also the role: mother, father, daughter, son... the relationship between those identities is scripted, but isn"t anything more than a straitjacket... but this article is about the identity traits you invented... And doesn"t claim to be complete.

I just stumbled on a New York Times article that looks at identity but only at its above the waterline part... and knows nothing, doesn"t even suspect the iceberg that is below the water.

It"s not a bad article, but like always when you ignore the big picture, ignore the invisible, you are pandering to the popular culture, the same one that keeps you in bondage.

If you are not in the Playground, and want a copy of that article, please email me at sophie at yourvibration.com and say you want a copy of that article.

Playground students will find it posted on the membership site... in a few minutes...))

What identity? you ask.

That person you deeply believe that you are. The good person, the helpful person, the nice person...

Or the superman
Or the intelligent, well spoken person
Or the smart person...
Or the humble person...

But there are questions, because those same identity traits are at the root of some of your complaints, so there is a disharmony somewhere.

That good person isn"t allowed to stand up for themselves. Or to tell off another... They are, quite uncharacteristically, opinionate, judge, suffer about how other people are... but none of it comes out of their mouths.

That humble person cannot quite mask their arrogance, superiority, by giggling like the humble person you invented.

And the smart person cannot quite grasp the essence of many things, but at the same time has no permission to be a beginner, bumbling stumbling clumsy person, so you cannot actually learn anything...

And that same smart person has to figure out everything for themselves, or otherwise they would not be considered smart, and almost every step of the way you find out that your answers are not good answers, and your questions are not good questions... and that you put your eyes so close to everything that you do, that you lose the big picture 99% of the time... so you are always working on the wrong thing.

So how come your identity traits that you so cherish aren"t serving you, and that you have so little flexibility, so little freedom to be?

You may blame the outside, other people, the family, society, the occupation you chose, the school you attend, but the blame lies with something else.

Your fixing nature. Your nature that sees everything as wrong, and invents and has invented rules to fix the wrong.

Everything that others acknowledge about you was your invention to fix something you saw as wrong. And now you are limited in all sides, and live in a straightjacket, that you don"t seem to get out of.

You say: I wish I could free to be myself... but you don"t know what that "myself" would be... after all you already have a "myself" and you both love and hate it.

So let"s see how you can get out of this self-built jail and have some freedom, shall we?

According to Landmark Education, you created these personality traits, the elements that in a hodge podge way built the identity you now "sport" and are limited by.

In moments, in situations, where you weren"t enough. You didn"t measure up. You weren"t a match to the task asked of you. You were too little, or too stupid, or too ignorant, or too weak, or too girlish, or too whatever you said... And that was what was wrong, and you set out to fix it.

Most everybody can identify at least three incidents, the birth of some limiting characteristic that looked like a good idea at the time.

• 1. My first incident was when my mother left me in the street because at two years of age I could not keep up with her. I watched her march away in her high heels, and, watching the person I am today, I must have made up that being fast is the answer... and I made up the persona of speedy Gonzales, eager beaver, ((buzgo mocsing in Hungarian)), someone who always makes you feel like you are too slow... because they are ahead of you.

Obviously this doesn"t allow me to fit in with groups, not even with another person, because it feels competitive, and it leaves others feeling that they you do that to slight them.

It was meant to fix the wrong... and it created a bigger wrong... something I need to keep an eye on, or it automatically takes over.

• 2. My second incident happened two years later. I was lost in some kind of a party, and a man came and offered his hand to take me... I thought back to my nanny. I was relieved, but soon I found out, he relieved himself in me in a barn and left me for dead.

This one puzzled me for a long time. I decided that I cannot, will not trust anyone, because I can"t be sure of their real intention. Not my parents, not my teachers, not boys, not anyone... even myself... I can"t, should not trust.

Talking about straitjacket, this one decision has surrounded me, and has been limiting me to no end.

My whole career is a framework for me not trusting anyone including myself...

• 3. The third incident was when I was in University and needed tools to do the work required. I asked my mother, and she savagely beat me.

The personality trait I invented to fix that is to not ask for anything. Either take it, or go without.

I am actively working on learning to ask for what I want, and it is a struggle... every time.

One could call my type of person "independent", but look again... it is not quite working for me.

You see that if how you are is the source of ongoing complaints, then the "personality trait" you invented, is preventing you from living a life you love, from being powerful in life, from having freedom of choice.

The lack of a real self

The biggest issue that people are left with: they don"t know who they are. Instinctively they know that they are not that personality, but who are they?

Who are you when you remove the fixed ways of being, the fixed personality traits?

One little glimpse I get when I ask that question, is that I would be kind... And I would be able to see myself (and others) as a person... not as a fixed object that needs to be handled. That need to measure up. That is supposed to be, do the right thing... But someone who is like a flower, like the sunrise, like the clouds in the sky, someone who has the right to be according to what they see as important.

Consider that the hardest of things to do, given your current mindset, where you are an object in the world of objects, battling it out.

And as I see it, as long as that is your world view, you won"t be able to see values beyond extrinsic use or monetary values to you... because the world of intrinsic values isn"t visible from the world of objects battling it out.

So you have nothing higher to inspire you than having more, better, and different... inside the same limited world of objects battling it out.

• You want liberty to do what you want when you want it, but you know nothing about freedom. Liberty is NOT an intrinsic value, but freedom is.


• You want to be loved in spite of your ugliness. But you know nothing about love... love is an intrinsic value... not available inside the world of objects battling it out.

And so on, and so on.

Straitjacket all the way.

By the way, strait means narrow... and is not a typo. The straitjacket narrows your options for movements... there is nothing straight about it. Just like there is nothing straight about the strait and narrow... the strait and narrow is often a zig-zag...

So, what do you do to loosen that straps of the straitjacket?

The first step is to identify and recognize the limiting nature of the personality trait you invented.
The second step is to learn to go beyond... baby steps...

For example the giggling "humility" people in my Playground (4! 50% of the class!) will stop giggling, and own up to their superiority, or their unkindness... somehow.

Will it be easy? No. Is there a recipe? Not that I know of. I am still an eager beaver. I still don"t believe anything until I checked it out thoroughly. And I am still independent... although I have been getting better at asking for help.

If you are in the Playground, and have signed up for email coaching, you will get personal guidance... Just ask for it.

Hard time to ask for anything? Maybe then that is your first thing to learn: to ask.

Maybe even ask: what should you ask for? Because you probably don"t know. And your life is a mess, because you can only do what you can see without anyone"s help. Trust issue...

I have the tools to go beyond, but you may not... So ask: what can I, what could I ask for to enlarge my view of the world?