5 Characteristics Of Grit -- How Many Do You Have?

Reprinted from Forbes... ((by Margaret M. Perlis I write about Excellence in practice, people, places & product.))

Recently some close friends visited, both of whom have worked in education with adolescents for over 40 years. We were talking about students in general and when I asked what has changed with regards to the character of kids, in unison they said “grit” – or more specifically, lack thereof. There seems to be growing concern among teachers that kids these days are growing soft.

When I took a deeper dive, I found that what my friends have been observing in-the-field, researchers have been measuring in the lab. The role grit plays in success has become a topic du jour, spearheaded by Angela Duckworth, who was catapulted to the forefront of the field after delivering a TED talk which has since been viewed well over a  million times.

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Are you healthy enough to have meaning to your life? Purpose?

Meaning: Following THAT Star. The alternative is Meaningless
This is my quest: to follow that star, no matter how hopeless, no matter how far.



Humans are strange animals: they need meaning to make their lives to feel more than just existing. They need purpose to give a backbone, to give direction, to transform a life of prose to poetry.

But life is, in itself, empty and meaningless... so how do you find the meaning, how do you find the purpose?

I was 38 years old when meaning first entered my life. It was dramatic, and it was life altering.

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Why is rape so traumatic, while sex is so commonplace?

Why is rape so traumatic, while sex is so commonplace?
Why is slave labor so traumatic, while working is so natural to us.

If you have ever been pinned down, not able to free yourself...
If you have ever been forced to do something you didn"t want to do... anything...

...your trust of life, your trust in people, your confidence has dealt a big blow.

Recovering is not guaranteed, and the wound can be torn open again quite easily.

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The importance of knowing what you want

Knowing what you want to achieve, is one thing that is missing in you. Another name for that is called "mental representation" of what you want to achieve.

Mental representation is a detailed picture, so detailed and so tangible, that you can pinpoint where reality is deviating from it... and how.

Mental representation is a spiritual capacity that sits squarely on a lot of other spiritual capacities, so obviously it is not part of the first seven most people have, not even part of the first 13, many professionals have, not even part of the first 20, that doctors have. And, believe it or not, it is not even part of the first 30, that most millionaires, billionaires have.

Bill Gates doesn"t have it. Warren Buffet has it.
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Time to reinvent yourself as someone you can love

You live in a world of your own design... Time to reinvent yourself as someone you can love

Your own design is like a filter you look through. You can"t see the filter, just like you don"t see the window unless you touch it...
A filter is like a pair of glasses...
A filter is also like a pair of glasses... They can be dark tinted, they can be yellow, green... and the world occurs differently with each pair of glasses. You can"t see that it"s the glasses that make the world look the way the world looks to you... unless you can take it off...

You can see only the ripples. The indication that there is something there...

It"s the ripples that we don"t like... we don"t like the things we do, the things we think, the things we feel. We want to change the ripples. But the ripples are the surface of the iceberg... hidden, invisible...
But you can"t change something that you don"t know. You can"t change something that you don"t see.
We all want to reinvent ourselves, our world. Because what we have now is not working too well, not serving us too well. We can"t have what we want, and we suffer.

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Is Tai Lopez 67 steps a fraud or have you been defrauded? the bad news...

I have been pondering something that has been really bothering me. I have diagnosed it 90% accurately, but I have no idea how to change it.

And that is the cultural shift towards avoiding work.

I first woke up to it when my favorite teacher, Robert Plank, called it a four letter word, and avoided using it.

The weird and disorienting fact was this: Robert loved getting things done. Actually really loved it. So it was the word, somehow, that appalled him. He lives in California... I thought maybe it had something to do with it.

But since then I realized that it is all over the place.

The media teaches us that work is ugly, or not necessary, or if you are smart you don"t have to work... and today any type of work is included. Even school work...
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If you can"t move from A to B... The Too Direct Approach To Anything

I just finished watching a long (2 and a half hour long!) webinar, and one of the phrases that I want to borrow from there, is this: it"s not you, it"s your approach that makes you get less out of life than you could.

One of these approaches I see often that rob you of success is: The Too Direct Approach To Things

One of the mistakes, one of the false beliefs, one of the erroneous ideas your paradigm gives you is to attempt to get from point A to point B through the straight, direct route.

But... No Problem Can Be Solved From The Same Level Of Consciousness That Created It ((What does No Problem Can Be Solved From The Same Level Of Consciousness That Created It mean... It means that the thinking, the vibration, the consciousness, the attitude that cause the problem in the first place cannot find a solution that is not the next, bigger problem. In a way of a metaphor: if you create i.e. see a problem on the pedestrian level, you cannot solve it on the same level, because you will only see from that level what you saw before. You need to elevate yourself at least to the second floor level of consciousness, so you can see more, more of the picture, not just what you saw before. In my programs, with my activators, many people can move to a higher level of observation, so their problems disappear as a problem, or they can find a solution that will not bite them in the rear end.))

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Doing your soul correction, shifting your state of being, toughening up

What is the easiest method to shift someone"s state of being?

We already know. Children, when they cry because they hurt themselves, can be brought out of crying by directing their attention to something more interesting, more engaging.

We use it in the Soaring Method.

I use it in almost every coaching conversation I have with people who are stuck in some unproductive state of being, like sadness, despair, maybe even resistance.

State of being, mode of being, beingness... all are outside of what you call self-awareness...

Self-awareness on the level of human is all physical and emotional.

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Can you tell what size is your cone of vision? Look to what degree your live is fragmented...

Your vibration, your creativity, your truth value all depends on your cone of vision... But until you see that you have a narrow cone of vision, that you look at things with narrow cone of vision, or a narrow filter, you won"t want to make it wider.

Wide cone of vision means inclusive... narrow cone of vision is exclusive... exclusive of areas that you KNOW don"t matter, don"t belong, or you don"t like them. Exclusive because you KNOW the answer...

The most exciting insights first show up in the corner of your eyes... Which means they are literally outside of your cone of vision.

One way I see this is how attached you are to one area of life, or one way to do it, or one problem you have.

For some: it is their soul correction. They scratch the wound until it bleeds, and neither the soul correction issue moves, nor their lives move... it is a strategy.

Strait and narrow is transferred on land. It may be narrow, but it is not the strait. Strait means a narrow path of water between land masses.

If you are on a ship, talking about the land is irrelevant, won"t allow you to pass.

For others it is laziness.

But for most, it"s the soul correction...

Soul correction is one way the "Universe" is telling us that there is some design... otherwise soul correction categories would not exist. Or horoscope signs.

And most soul corrections narrow your cone of vision to not see all of what can be seen. Not even look.

I am a "Forget Thyself" soul correction. I need people to condescend upon, feel superior to.
I avoid people in position of authority. And I have been avoiding my older brother. I have dug up some information that could be useful for her wife"s health, but decided that he"ll knock me for it... so I didn"t do it.

This week I called him, and he was gracious, maybe even grateful. I wasn"t superior. Instead I looked wider, and was helpful, loving, sharing? Without the big ego.

Summon different ways of being... wider cone of vision...

Because it really not physical seeing as much as spiritual seeing.

In the sentence: how you do anything is how you do everything is true, because of your narrow cone of vision with regards to approach, attitude, being.

Giving lip service to higher states of being is not being that way. Talking about flying isn"t...

You know your dominant being: cheerful, gloomy, withholding, belligerent, self-aggrandizing, slimy, slippery, avoiding, domineering, judgmental, fearful, suppressed, tentative, deceitful, delusional, arrogant...

I am actually looking at actual people in that list above.

You know who you are.

Sometimes I give exercises to expand your repertory of ways to be.

Like most actors, you play life the same way, no matter what the movie.

And then are a few actors, very few, Meryl Streep, for example, who can change the how.

You are not locked in... just there is more pull to be one way. Boring, predictable, lifeless.

And what you see while you are that
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Want to break out of living the life the selfish gene allows you to live?

How does mind serve the ego, and ego serves the selfish gene... Evolutionary view of team "you"

Tuesdays are my days to interface with people who are neither my readers, nor my clients.

Ordinary people. And although it is very frustrating to me, and maybe even them, I learn a lot from these unpleasant interactions.

Ever since I read The Selfish Gene, a book, and even more since I read the book "Why beautiful people have daughters" a look on life through evolutionary psychology, I am trying to match what I read with what I see, hear, and feel.

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Could you learn to be an investor like Warren Buffet? If you had the time, the teachers, the money?

I shared a few bits here and there today with my chiropractor... He has 13 capacities used.

The conversation was an utter and total failure.

Capacities, abilities, is a whole new concept, and he wasn"t even getting a glimpse of what I was talking about. Very interesting.

It seems that the mistaken belief is that you can learn anything... including being an investor like Warren Buffet... that is a total illusion: you cannot learn anything that you don"t have the capacities for.

Most types of learning, like classes, coaching, etc. don"t take you to a place where the capacity missing would turn on, because you are ready for it and need it, It is not deep enough water, so the sink or swim would apply. Especially if you think you should be able to do it...

Big mistake.

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#ActivatingAbilities

Capacities... what does it mean? How do you know someone only has a few capacities active?

Capacities... what does it mean? How do you know someone only has a few capacities active?

I was on a marketing webinar... actually it is still going on as I am writing this.

The presenters are two brothers in Ireland... genius as far as building a piece of software, morons in every other area that I can see.

One has nine, the other has ten capacities working.

So, in the brief duration of the webinar, what were the capacities that weren"t turned on and made it pure hell being on the webinar:

not having a sense of what they sound like
talking about a screen not aware that that is not what the attendees of the webinar see
building an offer that timed poorly, presented poorly, salesy...
overselling...

Those are behaviors that are underlied by 10 capacities that they don"t have...

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#ActivatingAbilities, #VibrationalReviews

Does having more capacities turned on raise your vibration too?

Superiority... The word comes up a lot in my coaching. Mostly in the context of your soul correction.

But in reality, some things are superior to other things... because all exists on many scales.

On the DNA capacities "scale" someone with 30 capacities is superior to someone who has 29, 20, 10, 7.

I haven"t found anyone with less than seven capacities, though I am sure there are.

So superior is not the issue. Acting superior is the issue.

It attacks people"s egos, the part of a human that makes sure the person survives. And as in any competition, it can get ugly. ((Ugly really appeals to the lowest common denominator. They are attracted to the low vibration, low capacity, brawn person... that is the problem in democracy: people who are low vibration, self-serving are elected by the low vibration, self-serving crowds. The same people who were so vocal answering my email with their imminent wisdom knowing what capacities mean, and such.))

People tend to cultivate the capacities that they consider an unfair advantage in the competition for survival.



In politics, it is mostly lying convincingly, trashing the other, promising, and such. In many areas that is physical strength.

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#ActivatingAbilities

Getting really smart is scary

One thing the book Flowers for Algernon did not prepare me for is how scary it is to get too smart too quickly.



I have been experimenting with different capacities... what they do, what behavior, what insight they possible.

One of these capacities increased my capacity (it had been turned on, but not fully utilized by me) to see many steps ahead and act accordingly.

And for the first time since I started this work, I got scared.

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#ActivatingAbilities

The hardest thing, it seems, for any human, is to let go of control.

Just think how hard it is to let go and pee, when people are, maybe, watching. Falling asleep in a new environment.

But... when you are controlling, your are shrinking. When you let go of control: you are expanding.

There are so many things to control: with your control of the few things you know, your breathing, your thoughts... you take yourself out of life, take yourself to a place, where life dies with your control.

In you, and around you.

There is an exercise they make you do in leadership classes. Two people face each other. One say names of colors, the other"s job is to repeat the word the one says.

After a while they synchronize... then they switch.

Pairs where either of them wants to control... fail. Pairs where both let go... they seem to be one mouth speaking.

Same thing happens when it is movement they mirror. The same couples fail.

Life can"t be controlled, life works best when you let go.

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#ActivatingAbilities

Is responsibility a capacity? A case study

Message to my friend: please don"t be offended. This was too good a story, too educational, to pass by. I didn"t mean to offend you, or invalidate your effort.

Is responsibility a capacity? If it isn"t, it should be... but it isn"t.

Responsibility, the behavior, has lots of other capacities that need to be lit up for it to work.

I am observing an unfolding dramatic story: a storm in a teacup.

I don"t have a car. I have a woman, who has become a friend eventually, drive me on Tuesdays to do my errands, chiropractor, grocery shopping.

She has family in California, and will spend Thanksgiving with them. Next Tuesday she won"t be around.

I need to find another way to get fresh cream for my tea...

She decides that she can help.

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#ActivatingAbilities, #CaseStudies

An Atlantic article: What does ISIS really want?

What ISIS Really Wants
from the Atlantic

The Islamic State is no mere collection of psychopaths. It is a religious group with carefully considered beliefs, among them that it is a key agent of the coming apocalypse. Here"s what that means for its strategy—and for how to stop it.

What is the Islamic State?


Where did it come from, and what are its intentions? The simplicity of these questions can be deceiving, and few Western leaders seem to know the answers. In December, The New York Times published confidential comments by Major General Michael K. Nagata, the Special Operations commander for the United States in the Middle East, admitting that he had hardly begun figuring out the Islamic State"s appeal. "We have not defeated the idea," he said. "We do not even understand the idea." In the past year, President Obama has referred to the Islamic State, variously, as "not Islamic" and as al-Qaeda"s "jayvee team," statements that reflected confusion about the group, and may have contributed to significant strategic errors.


What to Do About ISIS?

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#Greatstuff

As promised: what is vibration? What does the vibration number measure?

I promised in my email... and here it is: my current understanding of the vibrational number

Dr. David Hawkins, whose vibrational or consciousness table I have been using to explain what the numbers I give you when I measure your vibration, thought that your emotional state correlates closely and well with your level of consciousness.

Instead of arguing that... what is there to argue?

You feel the way you feel.

On the other hand, if you look at those emotional states, it could be said that they hide, hide well, beingness states.

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#ActivatingAbilities, #ExpandingHumanBeing

Covering your facebook avatar with the tricolor French flag: what does it mean about you?

Covering your facebook avatar with the tricolor French flag: what does it mean about you?

Pretense? Courage?

Posting high-sounding sound bites on Facebook, like Marianne Williamson did:
David didn"t defeat Goliath by normal means; he defeated him by hitting him in the Third Eye. Goliath has one Achilles" heel, and that is that he has no conscience. The only thing more powerful than hate gone viral is love gone viral, and that is what we must make happen now. T

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#ActivatingAbilities, #DarkSide

More on activating consciousness to guide you: what are the abilities you use for that?

It is human nature to want to be smart. The feeling is: the smarter you are the better life will be.

But being smart from the mind isn"t very smart, except to the people who put the stuff in your mind.

In my readings about different cultures, the Chinese culture is a good example of that kind of smart. For hundreds and hundreds of years, the Chinese has been encouraged to repeat, not think.

For two years I had three Chinese students live next door: no thinking, no emotions, was my experience. If any emotions were felt by me, it was the emotions of visitors and guests... never the occupants.

Problem-solving

The evolution of the species requires people to be problem solvers.

There are two kinds of problem-solvers

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#ActivatingAbilities