There is no suffering, there is never anything wrong in reality. All suffering, all wrong is brought on by words...

We live in an imaginary reality... with literally no capacity, no ability to tell fact from fiction.

For the purposes of this conversation we"ll define reality as something even a just landed Martian can see, a Martian who isn"t complicit ((complicit: involved with others in an illegal activity or wrongdoing)) in the fiction we have been honoring as reality.

A Martian can see what is actually happening, but cannot see anything that is a cultural modification of the happening, or what happens inside your head.

So, for example, a Martian can see your mother talking, can hear voice coming out of your mother"s mouth. But he won"t see yelling, because yelling is a cultural, very emotional modification of speaking, even of speaking loudly. And a newly minted visitor on Earth, a Martian will not consider the meaning of the words, because the meaning isn"t happening...

So if your mother said: unless you say what I told you to do, you won"t belong to this family... the Martian isn"t going to say: Oh my god, how cruel... lol.

To fully appreciate what a Martian can see, I"ll introduce here a new concept of language:

Language #1: what you use 99.99% of the time, the misery maker... This is called descriptive language...

...and you use it to interpret, color, dramatize, make sense of life... Imprecise, and personal... I measure the accuracy of your language in the Starting Point Measurements.

One of the most reliable indicator of your chances of success is this number: the higher it is the less suffering you have...

This, the descriptive language tries to approximate reality, and is doing a poor job at it. It is highly political, and the gap between educated and clueless is getting wider by the day.

Language #2: active language:

speaking this can be considered an action. This category includes declarations, requests and promises... I won"t go into detail, but mastering this language is very important and it takes character to do so.

Language #3: Immediate Language

This is new to you, but is highly visible for the world to see, including our Martian. This language is called Immediate Language... it is the visible and obvious reaction something happening...

Surprise shows on the face. Fear often shows on the face. Hesitation, resistance, joy, amusement, excitement have a way to express themselves physically, in this language, Immediate Language

Language #4: Structural Language...

the position of objects to each other, their interplay, whether those objects are alive or inanimate.

Hugging, beating, hitting, pushing, leaning on, dropping, scratching, kissing...

Laughing, for example, is both an immediate language example, and a structural language example. Highly visible.

It is surprisingly mostly unconscious.

My memory of my childhood, actually my life was that I was serious, unhappy, moody, etc. When I first encountered the structural language as something to pay attention to.

Then I searched pictures of myself at different ages, and to my surprise (and dismay, because it poked holes into my story) most of the pictures showed me laughing recklessly, raucously, like a crazy person...

Once I started to track how I really express myself in structural language, I realized that I was a lot more animated, and very expressive in that language... no wonder I loved dance, pantomime, and loved being on stage.

I discarded my imaginary persona, and took on being me like I really am, a coherent whole, inside and outside.

Calls with me are a blast, I use my voice to express all that would be visible on a video, laugh like there is no tomorrow, and even use curse words to emphasize my offbeat, off the beaten path personality. Very freeing.

OK, now that we have the four languages, we can see more of what a Martian can see, and we can see that the words are not meaningful for the Martian... that the words are designed to replace reality, to describe reality.

And however close the words get... most words describe reality that doesn"t exist.

There is a whole big area of reality, in fact about 90% of reality, that only exists in language, only exists in the words.

But...

Here comes the mischief: let"s go back to the Bible, to the Garden of Eden, to the naming of the plants and the animals, and god"s rule of not eating from the Tree of Knowledge, the Tree of Good and Evil.

You should hear, that that whole episode was about language. Naming the animals was active language, declaration: you will be called elephant... and it was done... that animal, from that point on was called elephant. All the words had a phenomenon counterpart in reality... elephant, mouse, deer...

But it all became a whole new thing with the introduction of descriptive language in the Tree of Knowledge: judgment was introduced... Judgment is talking about stuff that doesn"t exist in reality, only in talking, only in words.

And therefore it is fair game to twist and change it according to the person"s fancy when it so served them to do.

And just like I wasn"t aware of my affect, of my real nature until I examined it with the help of a new angle to look from, most people have no clue that they twist and turn words to serve themselves, whatever their hidden agenda is.

You have a hidden agenda. You hid it and forgot that YOU hid it.

You made an executive decision at a certain point, most likely around age 3~4, and then made it your hidden agenda.

1. You said, for example, the world should go my way,

...that is how it should be... and then could spend a whole lifetime suffering that it isn"t, it doesn"t, because your executive decision was against nature, against reality, and powerless.

The only power it had is to make you miserable, and clueless that it is you who is causing the misery.

2. Here is another example: it"s winter, your father is in jail, your mother sends you to steal wood, so she can cook and heat the house. You don"t want to go. So she says: unless you do as I say, you are not part of this family.

You decide that you are worthless. And unless you X, you will be regarded as worthless by everyone.

Then you forget that YOU said that. Your mother just wanted to cook... but that is forgotten.

But, of course, you are a kid, and you have very little chance to do worthy things, so what do you do? You withdraw into your organ of imagination, your mind, and make up stories there, on how you are a worthy hero.

We call that Desire Trap... It is mighty difficult to do much in the world, in reality, when you are living in your imagination. So the gap between fantasy and reality is getting wider and deeper... And you are alternation between being truly worthless and truly heroic... And that is your life... until and unless you discover that in fact you made this whole thing up, and the premise: worthless was never real.

3. Here is a third example: you decided that only supermen are respected, so you decide to become superman. Your area of super performance is fixing stuff...

You tell everyone that you are superman... but after a while they expect immediate and magical results from you, and you feel sucked dry... and you are.

You trained the world to use your superpowers, and ignore you, the man. You see that they have no value for you the man, they only want what you can do...

The moment you realize that you trained them to treat you as your "avatar", as your fake persona, you can start training them to see you as a man, to hear you say: it takes time to get things done, and to claim your humanness... to be someone they can relate to, someone they can see as they see themselves...

4. This one is going to be painful. So if you are squeamish, skip this example.

You decided that you are not anything enough. You can"t win, things are bigger than you, others are bigger than you, and the best way to get them to do your bidding is to alternately show that you are trying, and that you are failing.

Your agenda is to be taken care of... and that you pretty much only have to keep up this charade for the rest of life. You suck people in with the occasional smarts, and the more frequent "I need help"...

You are a master manipulator, a user of people.

You are not allowed to amount to anything in this game you set up... you have to be an "almost success" by being a failure.

OK... these were the stories, we call them cases of the four people in the Men"s Playground... All potentially tragic, all potentially a hero"s journey... depending on how they will OWN the case. Own it as their own creation that has gone rogue.

The goal, the purpose of life is to live... and to become all you can become while you live.

You can see that any of these cases are working against you becoming all you can become... in fact the goal of the case is to keep you the same... to destroy your chances for personhood, to reduce you to a puppet.

Much like government. You elect your officials to take care of business, but instead, once they are elected, they become the puppet-master... See the similarity? Of the people, for the people? Bah humbug. For themselves.

Now, if you look at the cases, what you should be able to see, that without words none of that mechanism would exist.

You can see that the mischief comes from the Tree of Knowledge, where non-physical stuff got named...

Everything that the Martian cannot see is non-physical. Everything that the Martian cannot see is the consequence of words...

90% of your personal reality is made up of stuff that isn"t real... using the definition of reality we set out to use: if the Martian cannot see it, it is not real.

90% of your personal reality is made up of stuff that can be manipulated, easily, by others, or by your case.

All of your misery comes from that 90%.

The words.

The interesting thing is: the more interesting and rewarding your life, the less affinity you have to the words, to the story, to the misery.

Some of my students" entire life plays out in the words... and the most dramatic thing that is in the reality, meaning visible by the Martian, is a walk in the park, where the dog is on the leash and off the leash.

Nothing is happening, so life is filled with the words. Put on loudspeaker or not, you won"t and don"t have a life worth writing about until you get into the habit of looking, every moment, at the 10%: what is real. What is actually happening.

And leave the words to other underachievers who don"t know what you are talking about.

You can see that the quotes in my previous article, by George Bernard Shaw, and by Shakespeare applies to you to a T... you live in the world of words... and nothing is happening.

The Martian is bored to tears...

Really, depending on the percentage you live in the imaginary world given by the words, (in the Starting Point Measurements I call it, for now, To what degree you honor your feelings as reality?) you have intelligent, purposeful actions available to yourself.

The other day I watched a 4-hour long marathon presentation on how to get clients on Linkedin. The two dudes on the call where the exact opposite of each other in this regard.

I measured one with a 91% To what degree you honor your feelings as reality? number, and he kept on interrupting, drawing diagrams, explaining, making the whole issue muddy as hell.

The other, with a 20% To what degree you honor your feelings as reality? number was clear, concise, entertaining, and incredibly effective at presenting, doing what he was teaching, and getting through to me. I wanted to be him... funny, whimsical, and bold.

I measured the numbers of my students before and after our Playground call yesterday.

It is relatively easy to see what number they started with, by the amount of words they used to tell the story of the past week. The starting numbers were 60%/30%/91%/70%

After the realization that they are doing it themselves, they set up the puppet master to be jerked by, the numbers are now: 10%/10%/20%/50%

The numbers went down consistent with the degree of ownership the student can or willing to have...

And the new numbers, the degree of ownership, is also consistent with their current level of vibration.

It is all connected. In order to raise your vibration, you need to work on different aspects of unreality and disappear them, sculpt them away... that is the essence of the Michelangelo Method.

There is no suffering, there is never anything wrong in reality. All suffering, all wrong is brought on by words...

We live in an imaginary reality... with literally no capacity, no ability to tell fact from fiction.

For the purposes of this conversation we"ll define reality as something even a just landed Martian can see, a Martian who isn"t complicit ((complicit: involved with others in an illegal activity or wrongdoing)) in the fiction we have been honoring as reality.

A Martian can see what is actually happening, but cannot see anything that is a cultural modification of the happening, or what happens inside your head.

So, for example, a Martian can see your mother talking, can hear voice coming out of your mother"s mouth. But he won"t see yelling, because yelling is a cultural, very emotional modification of speaking, even of speaking loudly. And a newly minted visitor on Earth, a Martian will not consider the meaning of the words, because the meaning isn"t happening...

So if your mother said: unless you say what I told you to do, you won"t belong to this family... the Martian isn"t going to say: Oh my god, how cruel... lol.

To fully appreciate what a Martian can see, I"ll introduce here a new concept of language:

Language #1: what you use 99.99% of the time, the misery maker... This is called descriptive language...

...and you use it to interpret, color, dramatize, make sense of life... Imprecise, and personal... I measure the accuracy of your language in the Starting Point Measurements.

One of the most reliable indicator of your chances of success is this number: the higher it is the less suffering you have...

This, the descriptive language tries to approximate reality, and is doing a poor job at it. It is highly political, and the gap between educated and clueless is getting wider by the day.

Language #2: active language:

speaking this can be considered an action. This category includes declarations, requests and promises... I won"t go into detail, but mastering this language is very important and it takes character to do so.

Language #3: Immediate Language

This is new to you, but is highly visible for the world to see, including our Martian. This language is called Immediate Language... it is the visible and obvious reaction something happening...

Surprise shows on the face. Fear often shows on the face. Hesitation, resistance, joy, amusement, excitement have a way to express themselves physically, in this language, Immediate Language

Language #4: Structural Language...

the position of objects to each other, their interplay, whether those objects are alive or inanimate.

Hugging, beating, hitting, pushing, leaning on, dropping, scratching, kissing...

Laughing, for example, is both an immediate language example, and a structural language example. Highly visible.

It is surprisingly mostly unconscious.

My memory of my childhood, actually my life was that I was serious, unhappy, moody, etc. When I first encountered the structural language as something to pay attention to.

Then I searched pictures of myself at different ages, and to my surprise (and dismay, because it poked holes into my story) most of the pictures showed me laughing recklessly, raucously, like a crazy person...

Once I started to track how I really express myself in structural language, I realized that I was a lot more animated, and very expressive in that language... no wonder I loved dance, pantomime, and loved being on stage.

I discarded my imaginary persona, and took on being me like I really am, a coherent whole, inside and outside.

Calls with me are a blast, I use my voice to express all that would be visible on a video, laugh like there is no tomorrow, and even use curse words to emphasize my offbeat, off the beaten path personality. Very freeing.

OK, now that we have the four languages, we can see more of what a Martian can see, and we can see that the words are not meaningful for the Martian... that the words are designed to replace reality, to describe reality.

And however close the words get... most words describe reality that doesn"t exist.

There is a whole big area of reality, in fact about 90% of reality, that only exists in language, only exists in the words.

But...

Here comes the mischief: let"s go back to the Bible, to the Garden of Eden, to the naming of the plants and the animals, and god"s rule of not eating from the Tree of Knowledge, the Tree of Good and Evil.

You should hear, that that whole episode was about language. Naming the animals was active language, declaration: you will be called elephant... and it was done... that animal, from that point on was called elephant. All the words had a phenomenon counterpart in reality... elephant, mouse, deer...

But it all became a whole new thing with the introduction of descriptive language in the Tree of Knowledge: judgment was introduced... Judgment is talking about stuff that doesn"t exist in reality, only in talking, only in words.

And therefore it is fair game to twist and change it according to the person"s fancy when it so served them to do.

And just like I wasn"t aware of my affect, of my real nature until I examined it with the help of a new angle to look from, most people have no clue that they twist and turn words to serve themselves, whatever their hidden agenda is.

You have a hidden agenda. You hid it and forgot that YOU hid it.

You made an executive decision at a certain point, most likely around age 3~4, and then made it your hidden agenda.

1. You said, for example, the world should go my way,

...that is how it should be... and then could spend a whole lifetime suffering that it isn"t, it doesn"t, because your executive decision was against nature, against reality, and powerless.

The only power it had is to make you miserable, and clueless that it is you who is causing the misery.

2. Here is another example: it"s winter, your father is in jail, your mother sends you to steal wood, so she can cook and heat the house. You don"t want to go. So she says: unless you do as I say, you are not part of this family.

You decide that you are worthless. And unless you X, you will be regarded as worthless by everyone.

Then you forget that YOU said that. Your mother just wanted to cook... but that is forgotten.

But, of course, you are a kid, and you have very little chance to do worthy things, so what do you do? You withdraw into your organ of imagination, your mind, and make up stories there, on how you are a worthy hero.

We call that Desire Trap... It is mighty difficult to do much in the world, in reality, when you are living in your imagination. So the gap between fantasy and reality is getting wider and deeper... And you are alternation between being truly worthless and truly heroic... And that is your life... until and unless you discover that in fact you made this whole thing up, and the premise: worthless was never real.

3. Here is a third example: you decided that only supermen are respected, so you decide to become superman. Your area of super performance is fixing stuff...

You tell everyone that you are superman... but after a while they expect immediate and magical results from you, and you feel sucked dry... and you are.

You trained the world to use your superpowers, and ignore you, the man. You see that they have no value for you the man, they only want what you can do...

The moment you realize that you trained them to treat you as your "avatar", as your fake persona, you can start training them to see you as a man, to hear you say: it takes time to get things done, and to claim your humanness... to be someone they can relate to, someone they can see as they see themselves...

4. This one is going to be painful. So if you are squeamish, skip this example.

You decided that you are not anything enough. You can"t win, things are bigger than you, others are bigger than you, and the best way to get them to do your bidding is to alternately show that you are trying, and that you are failing.

Your agenda is to be taken care of... and that you pretty much only have to keep up this charade for the rest of life. You suck people in with the occasional smarts, and the more frequent "I need help"...

You are a master manipulator, a user of people.

You are not allowed to amount to anything in this game you set up... you have to be an "almost success" by being a failure.

OK... these were the stories, we call them cases of the four people in the Men"s Playground... All potentially tragic, all potentially a hero"s journey... depending on how they will OWN the case. Own it as their own creation that has gone rogue.

The goal, the purpose of life is to live... and to become all you can become while you live.

You can see that any of these cases are working against you becoming all you can become... in fact the goal of the case is to keep you the same... to destroy your chances for personhood, to reduce you to a puppet.

Much like government. You elect your officials to take care of business, but instead, once they are elected, they become the puppet-master... See the similarity? Of the people, for the people? Bah humbug. For themselves.

Now, if you look at the cases, what you should be able to see, that without words none of that mechanism would exist.

You can see that the mischief comes from the Tree of Knowledge, where non-physical stuff got named...

Everything that the Martian cannot see is non-physical. Everything that the Martian cannot see is the consequence of words...

90% of your personal reality is made up of stuff that isn"t real... using the definition of reality we set out to use: if the Martian cannot see it, it is not real.

90% of your personal reality is made up of stuff that can be manipulated, easily, by others, or by your case.

All of your misery comes from that 90%.

The words.

The interesting thing is: the more interesting and rewarding your life, the less affinity you have to the words, to the story, to the misery.

Some of my students" entire life plays out in the words... and the most dramatic thing that is in the reality, meaning visible by the Martian, is a walk in the park, where the dog is on the leash and off the leash.

Nothing is happening, so life is filled with the words. Put on loudspeaker or not, you won"t and don"t have a life worth writing about until you get into the habit of looking, every moment, at the 10%: what is real. What is actually happening.

And leave the words to other underachievers who don"t know what you are talking about.

You can see that the quotes in my previous article, by George Bernard Shaw, and by Shakespeare applies to you to a T... you live in the world of words... and nothing is happening.

The Martian is bored to tears...

Really, depending on the percentage you live in the imaginary world given by the words, (in the Starting Point Measurements I call it, for now, To what degree you honor your feelings as reality?) you have intelligent, purposeful actions available to yourself.

The other day I watched a 4-hour long marathon presentation on how to get clients on Linkedin. The two dudes on the call where the exact opposite of each other in this regard.

I measured one with a 91% To what degree you honor your feelings as reality? number, and he kept on interrupting, drawing diagrams, explaining, making the whole issue muddy as hell.

The other, with a 20% To what degree you honor your feelings as reality? number was clear, concise, entertaining, and incredibly effective at presenting, doing what he was teaching, and getting through to me. I wanted to be him... funny, whimsical, and bold.

I measured the numbers of my students before and after our Playground call yesterday.

It is relatively easy to see what number they started with, by the amount of words they used to tell the story of the past week. The starting numbers were 60%/30%/91%/70%

After the realization that they are doing it themselves, they set up the puppet master to be jerked by, the numbers are now: 10%/10%/20%/50%

The numbers went down consistent with the degree of ownership the student can or willing to have...

And the new numbers, the degree of ownership, is also consistent with their current level of vibration.

It is all connected. In order to raise your vibration, you need to work on different aspects of unreality and disappear them, sculpt them away... that is the essence of the Michelangelo Method.

How to get reasonably clear of your past?

This morning, while I was measuring someone"s starting point measurements, I wondered if there was another word for the desire measure. And it is... drumroll: entitlement. The person feels entitled to get from nature, from the universe, from the world those things that are desired without having to earn it, work for it, barter for it, compete for it... just because they are themselves. Knowledge, love, respect, compliments, stuff, money... It is almost always the same number as the lack of humility number, how much you think of yourself as the center of the universe, as it"s about you, take things personally.

The higher those two numbers are the less satisfying life becomes, because you always feel cheated.

Every young child thinks that the world, other people, their emotional state and response is centered around them.

So when something happens, and something always happens! they are sure it has something to do with them, that somehow they caused it.

It"s, unfortunately, normal. It is the starting point of a string of misunderstanding, a string of false assumptions, a string of decisions that derail the person"s life.

Almost all that happens in the Landmark Forum, a 3-day course, is designed to bring this string into awareness, so consciousness can correct thinking and behavior after the Forum.

And the 5,000 dollar auditing in Dianetics is all about revisiting that original incident to pull the drama out of it.

Some soul-corrections are unwilling to let go of the drama, unwilling to let go of the story, because the person"s identity is born in that story... and one feels that giving up the story is certain death.

But that is a feeling, and it"s is mistaken.

I lived the first 50 years of my life with the identity of being the victim of abuse. It made me want to punish everyone, I felt the right to do so, entitled.

Then in a collaging exercise I suddenly saw that story and truth may overlap, and they are not the same.

So I started to look what was the truth in my abuse story... and saw that there was 99% words, drama, and 1% reality.

I realized that looking at reality, what actually happened, gently eased my foot off the floor where it had been stuck. Suddenly I experienced freedom, maybe even liberty, joy, self-determination: my actions became my actions, instead of reacting to some stuff that happened long-long time ago, that made me protect myself, or attack others.

I felt myself blossoming, while previously I was like a tight bud, refusing to blossom... why? because I was going to be abused... said the voices in my head.

Until this "suddenly" happens, almost everything you do is to avoid, prevent that thing from happening again, or think it is happening again.

I plan to cause that "suddenly" in session 3 of the Playground... and it is the hardest work I have ever done.

People suddenly resist, become dense, don"t understand, or quit.

If you are in the course, or if you want to prepare for a future that is now a pipe dream, ponder this question:

If I lost my identity, and were asked, or given the opportunity to build a new one: who would I like to be? What kind of person, what would I be doing? Would I be married, would I be a male or a female, what kind of work is calling to me?

The identity, that you are damaged goods, is the only thing that leaves... your level of education, depth and width of your knowledge, unfortunately, remains the same... and you remember your name...

The only identity you have is the original story and your reaction to make sure it never happens again.

You can start over. At any age.

The voices will stop saying: it is not safe to do X, or life is dangerous. You will reclaim your natural curiosity, and zest... because what dampened, what has almost extinguished that fire is the story.

Landmark calls it "your case", Dianetics calls it ... engram...

It is not easy to get rid of it. You won"t get rid of it until you can tell the difference between reality and the interpretation. And because life comes through "occurrence" which is reality plus interpretation, until we are able to separate reality from the interpretation, we are a puppet on a string... predictable, and mostly miserable.

Most people have several engrams... but there is always the original, the earliest, the largest default context, that invites all the other traumatic events, and also provides the interpretation.

My own is "I am on borrowed time... I should be dead." It was the default context of my life for ever... and even today I find myself in it, temporarily, when I see displeasure on anyone"s face.

Even today my first impulse is to withdraw and become invisible, or alternatively become obnoxious and defiant.

Engrams, or your case won"t disappear... no matter what the Scientology people say: you can never become "clear"... you just learn to recognize it and you know what to do next.

I teach that and we practice it in the Playground. Without practice it is worthless... But you don"t know that... Not knowing that you need to practice, or not having opportunities to do so is why most Landmark graduates pretend that they "got it" while their inner world is slowly dying... and their vibration stay low, maybe even gets lower.

I am learning more from the mistakes of others.

My guiding principles have been changing. I am learning how to put a 10 above your head, I am learning how to make it part of my programs that you practice so I can be sure I"ve done all I can do to guarantee your results.

I don"t want to tell the story again... it is in an older article of mine... about the #10 method.

I have dabbled in the #10 method, but never committed to it. It is totally counter to my nature, so it is really hard. And to create processes, to trust that in partnership with peers you"ll do the work... ditto... trust is a little difficult for me.

Nevertheless, I have committed to these new principles... and clients will notice, are noticing, because the difference is very tangible. If you are one of my clients/students and you have noticed... please share your experience with me. And if you haven"t... please call me on it. Thank you.

Oh, I am going to start, in addition to the currently running two Playgrounds, a third one, and maybe a fourth one.

If you are interested, sign up. It is my "loss leader" program: meaning: a lot of work for me, but it prepares you to become a "real" client, someone I can take all the way to human being: where you have a life you love and live it powerfully. It is involved... some weeks one phone/skype call with a partner, others a "hub"... a training with me.

Who are you that you are? What is the bottom line about you?

You have a deep seated judgment about yourself. And that is the pivoting point, the linchpin that your life is growing out of.

In 1987, in a Landmark Forum, there was an exercise to drive this deep seated judgment about yourself to the surface. To make the invisible visible.

The question was: Who are you that you are?

I raised my hand and I was called on. I started to ramble about fear of commitment, wanting to remain a student all my life...

The Forum Leader said: Oh, you are a failure!

I set down and didn"t hear another word for the rest of the session.

Today, 31 years later, I muscle tested the truth value of that "failure" thing, and it was "almost true"... but not quite.

Then I started to guess, and stumbled on it: I am a disappointment.

And that can be really closely tracked in my life: I will disappoint, especially myself.

I set my sights high, and I produce high, but not quite.

Bottom line: I am afraid to go public, because I am sure I"ll disappoint. You, me, everyone.

It"s the only thing that still needs to be managed, day after day, or I"ll go depressed, and want to die.

I am that I"ll disappoint you. Ugh... ((Later that same year I got clear that that is who I was, stripped away everything.))

Now, in this article I didn"t want to talk about me, I wanted to talk about that simple statement that is killing your life.

So what can you do with that "who you are that you are" statement?

For one: you need to get clear on what it is.

Because unless you do, you"ll be wholly and fully controlled by it. Really.

I could tell you it"s a belief, but it is not...

Beliefs are weak constructs. Or more precisely: there is no such thing as a belief. What you call belief is way higher than the seed level... and is scarcely is ever influencing your actions.

Just look at your chart... You believe your self smart, better than others, and yet you are hesitant if not fearful to do anything new that would prove that you are smart or better than others.

What is directing your action is deeper than the so-called belief.

So if we looked at all the things you think about yourself as a dart board, the linchpin belief would be the bull"s eye, and the rest of the board would be filled with all the rest...

If you are fixated on the bull"s eye, you"ll be fearful to do the things that take care of you on the long run, that would make your life worth living.

I was told by my parents that I was stupid, but even though I heard them, it was noise. I knew what I could do... but because all they could see is this stupid girl, I felt that I was a disappointment. Once and for all.

But that also gave me freedom: they never really expected me to succeed, do well, so they neglected me. And I could do what I wanted, which is learn, experiment, excel, without being disturbed, praised, or any of the parent-child nonsense.

I was able to hear my innate desire to be the best I could be. Even though the pain of being a disappointment was nearly unbearable.

I don"t remember ever feeling loved, appreciated, valued, supported. I was alone.

But I was a high achiever.

My problems began in earnest when I started to work for money. I transferred my parents" disappointment in me to my employers, co-workers, and I didn"t do well as an employee.

I started to blossom when I finally left employment, and worked for myself.

But one-on-one coaching still brings back the relationship of "I will disappoint you."

So this will never end. But it can be managed.

In my case, managing it means: I do the best I can and what a client says about it is more about them than about me. And that is true: it was true about my parents, about my bosses.

My job is to do the best I can do, and get better... Make my best I can do grow. In leaps and bounds.

Keep my attention on growing, instead of the feedback.

Until you manage on focusing on something other than your ultimate issue, your "case", no coaching will really do much good.

In some cases finding what lights you up, an activity you enjoy and you are good at, is going to turn your life around. Because it will successfully and effectively take your focus off your bull"s eye.

The Juice Exercise is a very effective way to find that activity...

The Juice Exercise is an hour long conversation, one-on-one, to dig deep down.

When it is not successful, the reason is always the hiding ultimate issue.

It is something that the person is trying to hide... but hiding it will make it stronger.

• One client I had the Juice Exercise with, turned out much later, was hiding that who he was that he was is disgusting. He decided it at age three... That is the age where most of these ultimate pivoting points are decided.


• Another client decided that she wasn"t safe.


• Yet another client decided that they cannot trust themselves.


• Another decide that they are powerless...

Now, here is an interesting point:

That "who you are that you are", when it is not managed, it is a self-fulfilling prophecy. You stare at it, and you"ll wind up arriving to it... again and again.

Managing yourself is to see that it"s there, that what is predictable is that you"ll end up proving it true... but instead of stopping there, you look at the escape route... where you know you can succeed. Or you can remain in momentum.

It"s not easy, but even if you only succeed half of the time, your life won"t be that predictable, that miserable, that underachiever.

You are already doing the escape route, but your escape is unproductive.

You go to activities that bring you temporary relief, instead going to activities with a different focus.

So how do you know that the core issue is stalking you? You are afraid.

As I am writing this article, I am very afraid. My breathing in shallow, my shoulders are tight, my chest is tight... and I have to take frequent breaks as I am writing it.

I am afraid that I will disappoint you, because I am not sure if I am clear enough, but more importantly, I am not sure if this article is accurate enough.

So what is my alternate focus? every writing is re-writing. There... and this: It is hard to be silently brilliant, lots of thoughts occur when you open your mouth.

And once it is out, you can re-say it differently, you can look at it, you can re-write it, you can test it, and refine it, correct it, adjust it... you can massage it, tweak it... and eventually it will be good... I am sure of it.

Now it is out in the open, and I can hit publish and take what I get.

I can take it.

PS: As I am looking for illustration for this article, I stumbled on a Bible verse, where god asks the human: who are you that you are afraid of mere mortals?

I am not a Bible person, but this quote makes me thing. When you give too much importance to what others like you think of you, then you are abandoning the real values, the intrinsic values, the extrinsic values, and you render yourself a slave to society, to other people and their opinion of you.

Which means, you are out of integrity, because being true to yourself is being true to the Origina Design, your god-nature.

You live on the horizontal plane, plagued with fears, uncertainties, and fleeting pleasures.

This article hints on how to have a choice... because at present you probably have none.