Get Results: The more you have the more you have to lose
Life is full of contradictions, such as…
The more you learn, the more you know, the more you realise how little you actually know.
One person’s rubbish is another person’s treasure.
Letting go of expectations might well reduce suffering, while at the same time lessening the drive to take action and chase down goals.
The more we have, the more we have to lose.
The more you give, the more you get. “Givers gain” is a popular quote.
The more in need you are, the greater the tendency to “grab” at opportunities, but the less others are willing to give you as a result of this.
Is it best to aim for specialised learning, to go deep and narrow, or generalise by learning wide and shallow, to keep options open, and allowing for easier pivoting in the future, if needed?
There are contradictions everywhere.
Maybe nothing has any meaning other than the one we give it. Maybe life is about experiencing the rich tapestry of existence, and learning to break free of social conditioning and find our own meaning of experience. Maybe we should aim to break free of judging and labeling, or at least improve awareness of the process.
When we read a book with the intention to learn, we are encouraging our mind to shift perspective, to see things from a different position. We are seeking permission to think and feel differently than before, by reading the wise words of someone who may know better than us.
So should we live a life where we chase down dreams and pursue goals, in which we are driven to succeed?
Do we live life in gratitude and contentment, happy to live spiritually in the moment, free of attachments to thoughts, possessions and people, like a monk would do?
I guess, the beauty of life is, we get to decide as individuals.
Sure we might come across difficulties, obstacles and even pressure from people around us, who want us to serve their agendas, but in the end, we have the choice to either put up and shut up or take action to do something for ourselves.
Aligning the inner world of what makes us tick, with the outer world of what we spend time doing is key to living a fulfilling life, so we should perhaps try to live a life that best achieves that aim.
I was chatting to a friend of mine some time ago, when we got onto the subject of DRIVE. Drive to take action, to follow a certain path. I guess you could refer to drive as motivation.
Anyway we got to chatting about drive coming from the need to escape something, in the sense of keeping busy to keep the mind occupied, so as not to dwell on unpleasant memories.
I remember watching a Tony Robbins video where he was having a conversation about his fear of not taking action being so great, that it overcame any fear he had about taking action. The fear of taking action is often what prevent people pursuing their dreams and chasing their goals down. They fear failure, so don’t even try.
Having thought about this some more, I came to the realisation that we can be driven towards something, like a dream or a goal, or we can be driven to escape or avoid something from our past or in our present situation. There is a third option which is to not do anything because we are indifferent about or content with the status quo or we fear change, but we’ll just keep this post about the first two with regards to drive.
I questioned myself as to what the pros and cons of each of these drives were, and decided that if it helped someone achieve a desired course of action, then either is valid. However there are wider implications with regards to dealing with the issues that a person is running away from, because if they aren’t dealt with sooner or later, they are likely to be running forever. Running might originate from the fight or flight response, but prolonged flight is not particularly healthy in the long term.
It’s much healthier to be driven towards something or be driven by doing something. If you’ve a passion for doing something, than that seems like the ideal situation to aim for.
After all life is lived in the present moment, so it makes sense to enjoy the present moment by doing something you love. Anything else is a mind created construct, both past a future. The past has been spent, the future is not promised.
Marinate chicken with juice of half orange, juice of half lemon, 1 tbsp.
wholegrain mustard salt and pepper for at least 6hrs, or overnight.
For Salad: lettuce, orange, and spring onions and few drops of lemon juice.
Pepper couscous: just add some olives, pickled garlic and feta cheese, grill.
During my weight loss journey, I’ve learned to eat healthier, focusing on more of a plant based diet, cutting out rice, potatoes and bread. Having more vegetables and salads. It can be difficult to think of things to eat sometimes, so I’ve added this category to the website to help me remember what I’ve eaten and liked and hopefully you’ll find some value in it as well. This dish, as with all of the dishes featured on this website, was lovingly crafted by my wife Hazel.
Check out our weight loss guide for more info on losing weight and getting fitter here.
I recently read an article by Seth Godin about there being 2 kinds of marketing
“There’s the kind that no one can possibly like. The popups, popunders, high-pressure, track-your-private-data, scammy, spammy, interruptive, overpriced, overhyped, under-designed selfish nonsense that some people engage in.
And then there’s the kind that inspires us, delights us and brings us something we truly want.
We call them both marketing, but they couldn’t be more different.”
I completely agree with Godin’s assessment, marketers shouldn’t steal time away from or rudely interrupt people using pop ups or make them wait through adverts for the thing you promised them or for the thing they actually came for.
Give them their time back. Help people who want your help, who want what you’re selling. Be where they are looking.
If people land on your site, show your offering, have it close at hand but don’t try to beat them around the head with it. Let them know it’s there. If they are interested they’ll look, if your headline is tempting enough.
But don’t bait them with the promise of interesting content and then withhold it behind your bullshit offer. It’s wrong, your wrong and quite frankly you deserve nothing from them other than their scorn.
Don’t do it because everyone else is doing it either. Marketing has a bad name because marketers have a habit of abusing trust and taking things too far. There will be a backlash at some point, or at least some degree of bad feeling from prospective customers, towards you and your brand. You might enjoy some limited success, in the short term, but your reputation, in the long term, will be compromised and tinged with negativity. Don’t be that kind of marketer.
Get Results: true education comes from questioning what your told
Get Results: true education comes from questioning what your told
Get Results: experience life
Get Results: everything else is illusion
Get Results: travel feeds the soul
Get Results: holiday is good it enriches you
Get Results: life is too short
Get Results: success is the here and now
Get Results: learn with pleasure and remember
Get Results: focus on making a life
Get Results: stop complaining and start gaining
Get Results: tony robbins quote about destiny
Get Results: dont settle in life
Get Results: wheres you path taking you
Get Results: power corrupts
Get Results: do what you love
Get Results: Jim Rohn quotes get on the good side of life
Get Results: this moment
Get Results: get out of your head
Get Results: life is for living
Get Results: appreciation
Get Results: storytelling is the oldest form of education
Get Results: seek the truth
Get Results: experience life
Get Results: Love and do what you will
Get Results: accept instead of expect
Get Results: To be great focus
Get Results: life lives us
Get Results: learn by teaching
Check out some of the quotes we’ve found inspiration from, hope you also find them motivational. Bookmark this page as we’ll be rotating the quotes periodically.
People who have been told to stop smoking for health reasons, still smoke. Research says this is as high as 70%.
People who hate themselves because they are too fat, go eat more chocolate.
People who have never followed through, suddenly do.
Have you ever wondered why some people don’t take action when others do?
Why do people buy educational products and not get results?
How great would it be if everyone who bought them, actually used them, and did something with the information they provided?
I think people buy products to escape that feeling of lack, they buy for the feeling of hope it gives them, even if only for a short time.
What turns a person on, and what pisses them off is RELATIVE. It’s different for everyone.
People that don’t take action are in a DESIRE situation, they have dreams and ambitions, but not in a MUST situation.
People that do take action fear not following through more than taking action. They fear what they will miss out on, or they have a strong enough reason to follow through.
And they get validation when it works. Once they’ve proven it to themselves, they do more of it, often at a higher level. They leverage their results.
Some create rituals to allow them to get another skill to help them be even more productive/capable of earning more, being more and having more.
Breakthroughs come by feeding your mind, and creating a ritual every day, building momentum.
Surround yourself with more successful people, to help change your perspective. Shift your desires, your standards change by being in situations which show you better.
Alternatively, find something your excited about doing.
What would you do if you had a gun to your head? What would you do if you could not fail?
The holy grail between someone taking action or not is CERTAINTY or BELIEF. If you know it will change your life, you will take action.
Non-believers buy the product event though they don’t believe it will work. The product has to prove itself to them first, before they will believe it. They also lower their expectations. But to be a critic, you don’t have to have guts.
GUTS are needed to BELIEVE, but people don’t want to get their hopes up, for fear of disappointment.
Success is about 2 things…
MINDSET – It’s about potential. Practice in your head, so that you believe it, and body will get you through. The belief in their potential is key. You might say “I’m not like Tony Robbins, or Jim Rohn, so you take no action. So what would happen if you were certain you would not fail?
WHAT ACTION YOUR TAKE – will determine the results you get. Each success, builds on the last, via momentum.
So how do you produce certainty when the world is not giving it to you? Get results in your head, before you actually have them in reality. Visualise what your life is going to be like, believe it. Increase your EXPECTATIONS. Condition your mind so that you know you will achieve x.
Studies show MIND affects PERFORMANCE. So VISUALISE, perfect practice makes perfect. Through mentally practicing many times you develop certainty.
We have beliefs we aren’t even aware of. The POTENTIAL is always there, but you must change you feeling of CERTAINTY.
Don’t focused on the action, visualise the results. The action becomes automatic, you’re in flow state.
CONDITION YOUR MIND by making it a RITUAL, create CERTAINTY and BELIEF that you can and will succeed.
So in summary…
DECIDE – enough is enough
VISUALISATION – success
CONDITIONING – develop rituals, and create certainty. keep moving forwards
The quote “Often wrong, never in doubt” is often used in the context that you have to be confident in yourself and not doubt yourself even though you may be wrong. Doing something and failing is far worse than doubting yourself and therefore not even trying.
An alternative view can be taken from this statement, the meaning I took from it when I first heard it, was that it refers to over-confidence in some belief that could very well be wrong. It’s the delusion of certainty without actually having the full facts.
I see this as a major problem, rather than something to draw inspiration from. Sure we have to take risks in pursuit of dreams sometimes, but we should always strive to have the full facts and not follow things on a whim.
Beliefs shape behaviour and at the extremes, people are willing to die or kill in pursuit of their beliefs, As a society, we really don’t want beliefs being built on such shaky ground.
Question yourself, where have your strongest held beliefs come from? Can you back them with evidence? Are they built on truths?
I’ve done this myself, and many of my beliefs, held for many years are built from assumptions, inferences and from the testimony of other people, often people I considered experts and authority figures. Very few have come from my own research, from facts and backed by hard evidence.
I’ve learned to test and check as much as possible, and take everything else with some level of scientism.
Relying on the testimony of others seems like a good strategy, it makes sense, after all we don’t need to reinvent the wheel, we can stand on the shoulders of giants and make use of their knowledge. If you want to learn about wealth creation, learn from someone who has built wealth, if you want to learn about health, learn from someone who has achieved great health and fitness.
However be wary of authority figures manipulating you for their own ends. We’ve all seen scandals and cover-ups from banks, politicians, businesses and trusted individuals who turned out to be lying and misleading for their own ends. I take the view, the bigger they are the less we can afford to trust them. Mainly because financial pressures change people, the more they have the more they fear losing what they have. This makes them do things they might not have done before.
I am now very cautious of anyone who is certain of being in the right, knowing the truth, and who are subsequently certain that this or that will happen in the future, but have no real evidence or data to back that opinion up. If they are unwilling to at least, listen to an alternative view, I tend to run a mile. Their beliefs are out of control, and it’s likely to end in tears for somebody.
So what should you do if someone tells you something?
Critically evaluate information right away. That may help prevent your brain from storing the wrong information. “You want to avoid encoding those potentially problematic memories,” Rapp said.
Consider the source. People are more likely to use inaccurate information from a credible source than from an unreliable source, according to Rapp’s previous research.
Beware of “truthy” falsehoods. “When the truth is mixed with inaccurate statements, people are persuaded, fooled and less evaluative, which prevents them from noticing and rejecting the inaccurate ideas,” Rapp said.
I would add a couple of other things to this list. First, whoever is telling you, ask yourself, what’s in it for them? What’s their angle, have they anything to gain for telling you what they’re telling you? Even if you can’t answer these questions, be skeptical.
Finally I would add one last thing, ask them, how do you know? where’s the evidence? If their answer is something like, they’ve heard from a friend, or from unnamed source, take it with a pinch of salt. If they’ve got first hand experience of it, then take note, but again refer to the previous point of questioning their motives.
So in conclusion, we should be very cautious about our beliefs and those of others. Question everything, don’t just take things at face value. Beliefs are dangerous, particularly when you hold them with conviction, and have little insight into where they really come from. Social conditioning is very effective at indoctrinating people into doing what’s best for society or for a particular cause. This is not always the best for individuals.
For instance, parents often push us to play safe and not take unnecessary risks because of their social conditioning and fears instilled in them by their parents. They are just as socially conditioned and as blind to their conditioning as we are. It’s kind of like the blind leading the blind. They love you and care for you and want you to be safe, so they project their fears onto you, and so the cycle goes on through you and your children.
We might grow up with the belief that we should always PLAY IT SAFE, when we’d be better taking calculated risks at certain times or WORK ON OUR WEAKNESSES, when we’d be better doubling down on our strengths.
Question your beliefs and subsequently your opinions and views, and don’t be one of those people who are often wrong, never in doubt.
Non-attachment is about not resisting loss. It’s partly about surrendering to what is and not holding on to anything or anyone so tightly that you invest your sense of self in that attachment.
This is easier said that done, but it’s the goal. Partly by adjusting EXPECTATIONS, by understanding that all attachments are fleeting, and impertinent.
Also you can adjust your PERCEPTION of your relationships with attachments, removing ownership desires and delusions.
If you can do this with any attachments, you can enjoy them more with a deeper level of gratitude. Enjoy them while they last, rather than wasting energy fearing their loss.
The reality is you are going to lose them at some point, so better get your head around it, enjoy them and get on with it.
More about attachments
Think about your attachment to say, your home. You invest your hard earned money in something that you hope will not just provide you a home but also some security in your old age. It’s free to live in once you’ve paid off your mortgage, but when you die, you will leave it to your kids most likely. You surrender your claim to it through death. It provides security in life but death parts your ownership of it. The reality of your attachment is, you get to make use of it while you’re here, but then it moves on to your next of kin. The ownership is permission to exclusively use of it, for a limited time, nothing more.
Ownership of your home is one of the more financially savvy things to do, but we often attach to other possessions in much the same way, but not for investment reasons. We feel attached to anything we consider “mine”. Cars, clothes, phones to name a few. We feel the same sense of loss for things that don’t actually have any investment value to us. They depreciate in value over time, yet we get upset if we lose them or they are taken from us. This is because we have invested our sense of self in them.
They come to mean something to us, they are part of who we see ourselves to be. They are part of us. If we hear about someone, we don’t know, having their car stolen, we may not pay much attention to it, but if it’s our car that’s stolen we become upset. This is attachment. The difference is my car is part of my sense of self.
The more stuff we have, the more attachments we have, the more chance of feeling upset when we lose any of them, because we feel we’ve lost something of ourselves.
Attachments spread to people. We may invest our sense of self in our friends and family. They become part of us. When they suffer, we suffer. We mourn their loss. We may focus on our lives not being the same without them. It’s never going to be the same again, we may think. This is mourning a loss of the quality of our lives, a loss to our sense of self. Sure we may also feel sorrow for the other person, for their lost opportunities, unrealised desires etc, but a big part of grief is loss for ourselves. It’s a selfish tendency, but a natural one, when we hold tight to attachments.
We need to enjoy our close relationships, make the most of the time we have with them, but understand they are impertinent. When that person has gone, enjoy the memories we shared, sure, but always focus on our remaining relationships, because they too are impertinent.
We can also be attached to ideas, thoughts, political parties, religious ideologies, mental positions and views. When these attachments are challenged or attacked, we feel the same emotions as if we were being attacked, personally.
It could be argued that attachments to possessions and people are in fact attachments to the the thoughts or ideas about a possession or person, rather than an actual attachment to the subject of the attachment.
Attachments to thoughts can be very dangerous, because repetitive thought patterns become our BELIEFS and most of what we do in life is shaped by our beliefs. Wars are fought, lives are lost over strong attachments to beliefs. I won’t go into depth about belief attachments here but they are discussed elsewhere on this website.
Summary
It’s self preservation that pushes us to attach to things. Attachment is a survival instinct. We fight for what we are attached to. But attaching has a downside. We feel pain when we lose the subject of our attachment.
We are destined to feel pain, because all attachments are impermanent. In spiritual terms, attachment is of the Ego. We have ourselves wrapped up with the attachment, it is part of our sense of self, part of who we see ourselves to be. “It’s mine”, we tell ourselves.
We can become attached to people, possessions, ideas, thoughts, and political and religious ideologies. In fact all attachments are made via our thoughts. thoughts about people, possessions, mental positions, ideologies etc. Thoughts are the creator of attachments and also the point where we can break our attachments. If we change our thoughts about these attachments, we can change the attachments themselves.
Changing our expectations about our attachments means we no longer expect them to be available to us forever, because all attachments are impermanent. This is a fact, but instead of fearing their loss, fill your energy with appreciation and enjoy them while you can.
We can also Change our perceptions about our attachments. We get to enjoy them for a time, but they are not ours. Ownership is an illusion. We are custodians only for our possessions, and only for a limited period of time.
We should also question our thoughts about all our attachments, increasing awareness about the why we hold on to them. Where do we get our ideas, thoughts from? Why do we hold only certain political and religious ideologies.? Most beliefs, which are rigid thought forms, are taken from inferences and assumptions, rather than from fact and truths. So be very curious about any such attachments. We are all products of our experiences and environments, and we may only know what someone else wants us to believe, rather than what is fact and what actually serves us best.
Learning any new skill can be a very intimidating prospect, to begin with, we’re likely to clumsily fumble around like a baby learning to walk, often falling on our asses, but over time, with enough perseverance, we’re all capable of metaphorically rising elegantly to our feet and not just walking, but running, dancing and jumping, and some people, with practice, can somersault and land back on their feet with great style.
In these modern times, with technology driving the business landscape to change so rapidly, there is a greater requirement for individuals to also be able to change rapidly, to be able to learn and develop new skills, and be open to new challenges and demands.
The ability to learn rapidly is going to be increasingly necessary if individuals are going to thrive.
So learning quickly is going to be a must, moving forwards. So the question is, how can we learn and master new skills fast?
Tim Ferriss has developed a learning framework he calls DiSSS, which is an acronym for Deconstruction, Selection, Sequencing and Stakes.
1. Deconstruction: What are the minimal learnable units we should be starting with?
2. Selection: Which 20% of the blocks should we focus on for 80% or more of the outcome we want?
3. Sequencing: In what order should we learn the blocks?
4. Stakes: How do we set up stakes to create real consequences and guarantee we follow the program?
We’re looking to break a skill down to it’s most important components.
I find it easier to imagine starting a new project from scratch, and walk through it, step by step, noting down each requirement as I go.
I have recently put some of the teachings, found on this website, into practice for myself, while learning Python programming. Things like, finding reliable sources of accurate information by using role models, mentors and mastermind teams, and finding out the methods, relationships, systems and habits they use for success. You can find more about these things on other articles on the site, so I won’t go into depth here, but as part of the learning process I also looked to deconstruct the skill of programming into it’s essential ingredients. This is what I came up with..
Essential elements of programming
Understand the syntax for Python code, so that it does what I need it to do.
Develop the ability to break a problem down, so that I can use Python code to address or solve it. After all code is written to solve problems, some of which are complex and some of which are more straight forward.
Following on from number 2, being able to spot problems to begin with is also a skill that can be developed, not everyone has enough empathy for others to be able to stand in their shoes and see how they see any given situation. Good coders either solve problems they, themselves experience and need fixing or they empathise for other people.
These were my major findings when it came to DECONSTRUCTING Python, these being the top level concepts that I needed to learn about and develop. They constitute the 20% that needs learning to achieve 80% of the results, in my opinion, as Tim Ferriss advocates in his DiSSS framework.
In terms of number 1, understanding the syntax of Python, there were/is countless websites and YouTube videos devoted to the subject. The most time consuming part of it was finding reliable ones that made it easy for a newbie like me to understand.
Some of the tutorials mixed mathematical principles and coding together, which for me, made it rather confusing, as I needed to brush up on maths I hadn’t used for years, such as Algebra. I eventually found the tutorials that linked the new concepts I needed to learn about Python programming to things I already understood, and this made the learning process much easier.
The list of important syntax included:
Commenting on your code
Variables
Mathematical operations
Logical Operations
Conditionals such as if, elif and else statements which effect a programs flow
Loops – for, while loops particularly
Built in library
External library and use of modules
Data types – strings/ integers/ floats/ booleans/ lists/ tuples/ dictionaries
Dealing with errors and exceptions
Functions
Classes
I practiced code examples, repeating time and time again, until I could recall the code without any prompting and completely from memory.
I practiced the code, broke it apart, removed some of it to see what happened, moved the order around to see what difference it made. I changed it so that I knew what each part did and why.
I progressed by making a few small apps for myself, such as one that just did a simple “to do list”, another that converted currencies, sizes, weights. I did one that helped in the decision making process, another that evaluated moods and so on. Through this practicing and the subsequent trial and error, I gained a better appreciation for what could be done using Python.
I went on forums and groups and tried to spot the problems in other people’s code and solve them. Some forums and groups had challenges that I tried.
Through this I not only improved my coding skills, I developed my problem solving skills and ability to use code effectively to provide real solutions, this also realised number 3 in Tim’s framework criteria, SEQUENCING. I didn’t set out to learn code before sharpening my problem-solving skills, it just intuitively happened that way.
My programming skills are still a work-in-progress but I’m getting better all the time, through purposeful practice, and challenging myself.
I’m 50 years old, and coding with Python is a completely new experience for me, but I’m enjoying the learning process which means I don’t really have to bother with the final criteria of Tim’s framework, STAKES, the shear joy of doing it is enough to keep me going, mixed in with the fact that it’s giving me new skills and a greater knowledge of the new technical world we are facing. With knowledge comes power as they say, but equally with knowledge comes less fear, fear of the unknown.
“Power corrupts and absolute power absolutely corrupts.”
It’s an interesting statement but is it accurate?
If you think about human nature we all have a tendency to gravitate towards inflating our sense of self, and avoiding situations that devalue it.
Evidence of this is all around us in everyday life. Arguments are engaged in to uphold ones sense of self. For instance, think about the reasons why you last argued, were you protecting something important to you? Something you’d invested yourself in. When you prefix “my…” to anything, such as“my idea”, “my thoughts”, “my opinion”, “my possessions”, “my kids” you make it part of your self-worth.
The mind believes, the more you HAVE the more you ARE, but the flip side of having more and being more, is that you also have more to lose.
When individuals gain more money, more power, more stature, it becomes more difficult to face loosing it, and so self interest and self preservation become even more important.
Those in power have more to lose by rocking the boat, by fighting again the very system they are benefiting from, so what do they do, they fight to preserve the status quo, because it serves them and after all, we are all designed to protect ourselves, it’s our survival instinct doing it’s job.
If you understand this trait of human nature, you come to realise that anyone in power is open to corruption, and is not going to drive through change that could potentially put them at risk.
You can’t defy human nature, we are what we are, but you can manage it, so that society is better for it, and so that those in power, serve society rather than themselves.
So how do we, the ordinary people, deal with the fact that people are self serving and power only increases this instinct?
Well, we start to actually hold politicians, businesses and powerful individuals to account, we make sure they deliver on the promises they benefited on the back of, and if they don’t they should know they have a great deal to lose.
