Some of my favorite Quotes
"Everything rises and falls on leadership." John Maxwell
"We grow great by dreams. All great men are dreamers." Woodrow Wilson (no relation)
"You must be the change you wish to see in the world." Mohatma Gandhi

Thursday, June 23, 2011

Two Thousand vs Four Billion - - - HMMM - - - How to go with the winner.

A great  book written by Vince Poscente is titled "The Ant and the Elephant".  From the title, it sounds a lot like a kid's book and it could be read and taken that way.  It's actually a book written for us big people though.  The words in this book make you think it's merely about an ant riding on top of an elephant.  The story talks about a journey taking place where the ant actually learns how to control the elephant.  The book isn't actually about an ant and elephant at all.  They are just symbols that represent something much more important than an insect and a pachyderm.  They actually represent - - - -

In a nut shell this book is referring to our conscious and our subconscious mind.  (the Ant & the Elephant) Much of this is rooted in facts about how our minds work.  The core of the idea is that our conscious mind is capable of utilizing 2000 neurons per second when a thought occurs.  Contrast that with our subconscious mind which is capable of utilizing 4 BILLION neurons per second when a thought occurs.
Now - - 2000 vs 4,000,000,000 - - hmmm who's going to win?
Which part of the mind is most powerful?
Now if you want to get yourself to do something do you think you'd be better off using the 2000 neurons or the 4 BILLION neurons?

I know, the answer is obvious.  The real question is, "How do you go with the winner?"

Here's the first time I heard about this whole idea many years ago.  While in college in a class on problem solving, we were given 10 problems each week and were told they all had to be solved by the following week.  Just to be clear, these were TOUGH PROBLEMS!!!  The instructor told all of us that we wouldn't be able to solve each of these by just pounding through them, like we all did with problems in our other classes.  He said we should read through all of them, solve the ones we can figure out quickly, then be patient with the rest.  He told us to look at each problem daily, try to come up with solutions and if at the end of the day we hadn't solved them all, sleep on them.  This made NO SENSE to me, but I did it and somehow - - it worked!!  The only ones it didn't work for people were those who didn't look at them and seriously try to solve the problems each day.  Why did this approach work when all we were doing was sleeping on them?  We let our elephant work instead of our ant.  Our subconscious mind actually worked on the problems while we were sleeping. Our subconscious found a solution that we couldn't see consciously.

In order to use our elephant, we need to do just as my Professor instructed us to do so many years ago.  We need to purposefully put into our minds whatever it is that we desire most.  We need to on a daily basis, put these desires into our minds.  We need to consciously put something into our subconscious mind that we truly want.  Now remember when back in High School when you were told this? - - Me neither.  Seldom if ever is this talked about in a formal educational setting.  It is discussed in other forums however, that's why we need to keep learning.  Learning through seminars, reading good books, associating with those who have what we want and listening to inspirational audios.

Want some proof that our subconscious is more powerful than our conscious?  Years ago there was an experiment done in movie theaters.  They used subliminal messages to test a theory.  During the movie, they continually flashed pictures of popcorn & Coke along with short messages saying "Drink Coke" & "Eat Popcorn".  The images were flashed so quickly that they weren't even recognizable. The conscious mind didn't even realize it was being done.  The end result of the experiment was that for the first time ever, theaters sold out of Coke.  They couldn't pop the popcorn fast enough to keep up with demand.  There was great excitement because the theater operators figured out a great new way to market the most profitable part of their business.  Now, soon the powers that be, figured this out and banned the practice.  They didn't feel that the theater owners should be able to manipulate our minds. 

Napolean Hill discusses this very same idea in several of his books.  It is discussed in the book, video & audio titled "The Secret".  Many of the most successful people in our country today got where they are today by following the same suggestion.  They took what they want MOST, and somehow on a daily (or more often) basis they consciously reminded themselves of what they wanted most.  They kept their great want in their mind so often that soon the subconscious part of the mind was working on how to make this come true.  In the words of Napolean Hill - - "What the mind can conceive and truly believe, can be achieved."

Why then isn't everybody accomplishing their dreams & desires?  Many reasons.  Sometimes the conscious and subconscious parts of our minds are in a civil war.  We can decide who wins that war if we control what goes into our subconscious.  Many people haven't really dreamed since they were in grade school.  Most kindergartners dream big dreams, but when we get older the dreams often die.  Sometimes people sacrifice what they want now for what they want most.  Many people sacrifice something great for something that's "pretty good".  This isn't good or bad, it just is what it is.  The fact is that "Good is the enemy of Great."  If we want something big, we have to constantly remind ourselves what we want most. We need to remind ourselves with pictures.

The subconscious mind reacts with images, not words.  The conscious mind reacts with words.  If we truly want to get to where our dreams point, we have to put pictures in our subconscious mind. We have to consciously dream and picture where, what and who we want to be if it's going to become a reality.  There are resources out there, but we must purposefully take the first step and find out what it is that we truly want. Once we find it, we need to find a way to picture it at least TWICE DAILY.  Some recommend picturing what you truly want first thing in the morning & right before you go to sleep.  It won't come all at once, but it will over time if you are persistent.

Somehow if we're going to get our subconscious mind carrying us to where our conscious mind wants to be, we need to get the right pictures into our subconscious.  Orrin Woodward often says, "We don't often get what we want in life.  We don't even get what we deserve in life.  We do get what we picture."  So when we change the pictures we're feeding our subconscious we can live out our dreams.

I'll leave you with two quotes that are at the root of this whole idea:
1  "Nothing happens but first a dream."  - - Carl Sandburg
2  "Nothing in this world can take the place of persistence. Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful people with talent. Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education will not; the world is full of educated derelicts. Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent. The slogan "press on" has solved and always will solve the problems of the human race” - - Calvin Coolidge  

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