Your Environment is a Trap!

Success is making something out of nothing, which means, there's no path to actually follow. Yes, you have had predecessors create possible paths that you can follow. Yes, you can certainly model the success of others.  In fact, I highly recommend doing both. But in the end, your path will be a lonely path. It will be an individual path. Your path is going to be a path that you design and you create out of your own choices and your beliefs about the world.

Success is not going to be as easy as you think. It will always be more difficult and be wrought with challenge. Those challenges will make you great and deliver a success story that is all your own. Challenges are the lessons you need to become the person that you see in your mind. If success was easy, everybody would have it.  

Seven Steps to Happiness and Success is about engaging those challenges with ease, not because they're easy, but because you're in a state of resistance, and you aren't resisting the challenges and the setbacks that come at you when you are going after the success process.

Realize that a goal is a planned conflict with the status quo

So many people quit one step before they're about to make it. So many times in my own life, I have been one step away from succeeding, and I quit. Today, I listen to the radio, and I hear dance music songs with amazing pop hooks in them. Ten years ago, I was out peddling pop songs to be put into dance music, and over and over and over, I was rejected by the DJs, telling me that that was the stupidest thing they'd ever heard. I now realize that all I needed to do was to stick with my idea, to keep going, and today I would have more hits underneath my belt.

What about you? Have you quit too soon? Have you been faced with challenges, confronted with all kinds of disasters and chaos, insurmountable barriers that have stopped you? I believe that you have.

Success is destructive. Success challenges what you've been. Success requires you to change, and this is not easy to do, because it challenges the status quo in your life. Your life wants to be the same. Your mind, which I call The Drunk Monkey, is pulling you always toward what you've always done. The way in which you're going to break out and become something new is literally through destruction.

Homework:

Forgive yourself for all the failures you have had over the years. Recognize that you are a risk taker.  Realize that there were no instructions for the things that you've done, and there are no instructions for the things that you're going to do.

Ponder this thought, "There is no failure; there is just feedback." Let go of the idea that you are wrong or bad, because your success isn't turning out the way that you want it. Let go of your resistance. Get into the flow, and trust that all is well.
Congratulations, I am so proud of you. That you are reading this is truly a sign that change is afoot. Your life IS changing, shifting, and transforming with each lesson.  I know this is true because I have seen thousands of peoples lives change just from regular exposure to high conscious ideas.  Let's keep it going, okay?

Your Environment is a Trap!

Did you know that success ultimately is a function of the environment that you are in? The people you know, their expectations, and how you have spoken to them in the past is an invisible trap.

Your environment will influence your ability to succeed positively or negatively.  Environment is the invisible glass ceiling holding you back.

You have spent many, many years convincing the people around you that you are the way you are. You have told all of your friends and family members the reasons that you don't achieve what you want.  You have spent many hours discussing your past and how it has influenced to be the person you are today.  Your up bringing, your parents, your schooling, your friends, your experiences are all conversations you have discussed with your friends and family.  If I could be a fly on the wall, I imagine that I would hear you DESCRIBE what's happening in your life and why you think it is happening that way.  Plus I would hear you use your past experiences to justify why things are happening the way they are today. 

Say this out loud several times right now, "Describing is actually creating."

So often I hear people around me say...
The markets bad. 
The economy is stalled.
My background limits me. 
My skill set is inadequate. 
My lack of a degree is limiting my career. 
I'm not disciplined.
I'm not smart enough to figure this out.
I can't

These kinds of statements trap you without you knowing it. These statements create peoples expectations about who you are and what you can be counted on for.  The people around you get used to the kind of person that you have spoken yourself to be.  When you try to make a change, it makes people uncomfortable. You literally break rapport with your environment. When you break rapport with your environment, your friends, family and co-workers naturally resist, which causes you to go back to your old behavior.  Welcome to the prison you created for yourself!


Begin to talk about what you are committed to.  Begin to own that in the past you had weakness and that today you are overcoming them.  You are doing this lesson, right?  That's evidence that you are committed to growing beyond your limitations.

JFK did not know if we could get to the moon first or not.  But he spoke that future with conviction and it became our reality. 

Ghandi did not know if India could be free.  He simply spoke his commitment and followed the inspiration of that future until it became reality.

What do you want?  What are you committed to?  What can we all count on you for?  Who are you going to be in the world?  What is the legacy you are going to leave? 

Thank you for being a part of these lessons with me.  Can't wait to do something else with you.  It is a great pleasure to share what I have learned and implemented in my own life with you.

Posts on this blog were written by Mathew Ferry of
Elevate The Vibe LLC

Stop Thinking Negative

Success won't make you happy, but happiness can aid in your success. When you understand the The Drunk Monkey, you can let go of resisting everything that it takes to succeed. Success is difficult, but that doesn't mean it has to be frustrating, agonizing or cause suffering. You can learn to engage the challenge of success and do it in such a way that is easy, effortless and enjoyable. By effortless, I don't mean that it will lack effort, I mean metaphorically, for you, the effort will not feel like effort. 

Ease, effortlessness, and joy, begin with an understanding of The Drunk Monkey. When you realize that The Drunk Monkey in your head doesn't care about you, isn't interested in your goals and dreams and wants your life to remain the same, you begin to move beyond it and ignore the mind. When this occurs you effortlessly over come challenges and succeed with ease.

It is imperative that you understand that success will not make you happy. People with money are generally more satisfied then those without.  In the end, happiness is nothing more than context with which you view the world. Learning that context is essential for happiness.  Like I said before, when you get happy, success is easier.  Happiness makes you more attractive, easier to be with, which causes more people to want to deal with you.

Stop making up negative futures and avoiding them.

One of the tactics The Drunk Monkey uses to keep you safe (in a world that is not even dangerous) is dreaming up potential negative futures that you should avoid. The problem, of course, is these potential negative futures aren't coming. They are nothing more than a figment of your imagination, yet their impact is no less intense. Imaginary negative futures literally imprison you before anything negative has even happened. You worry, fret and feel fear even though nothing has actually happened.  You make plans to avoid this imaginary future, even though you have not encountered it. 

The truth is that you have infinite possibilities before you. Any future that you dream up, you can manifest. This is good news and bad news.  What you focus on, you create.  So, if you allow The Drunk Monkey to focus on imaginary negative futures, then you will create that in your life.  This only reinforces The Drunk Monkey's conviction that you should listen to its insanity!

You are not psychic. You don't know the future. You are not a fortune teller. So, these ntegative futures that The Drunk Monkey creates aren't nessisarily coming.  They represent one of millions of possibilities.  Yet, notice how you operate like they are coming.  This will cause you to zig when you need to zag.  You will operate out of fear when no fear is nessiary.  After coaching more then 8000 people to achieve happiness and success I can tell you that taking action when you are afraid often leads to disaster.  More importantly, it WILL NOT make you happy.

Can you succeed with fear in the background? Absolutely. Almost every person who has ever succeeded has had fear in the background. But I am suggesting that there is a new paradigm which is success without the fear. Fear is not necessary for success. Fear makes success harder. All fear stems from The Drunk Monkey and its foolish imaginings. Anything other then happiness and peace is just a state of mind. 

Homework:

Catch The Drunk Monkey making up negative futures.  Then question the validity of the imaginary future.  Dream up all the different futures that could happen.  Ask yourself, "Why couldn't one of these other futures be what's coming? Am I phycic?  Do I know the actual future?" 

Make up futures that you want. What are you committed to? What do you want to have happen? What are the futures worth going for?

If you are going to make things up, why not make things up that make you feel good. If you're going to make things up, why not make things up that empower you, inspire you, and gets you in action.

Stop allowing The Drunk Monkey to make things up, that debilitate and put you in fear.

Matthew Ferry & Elevate The Vibe LLC

Happy People Succeed Easier

You made it! The next Lesson  has arrived, and you're actually reading it. This tells me that you're committed to achieving a new kind of success in your life. A success that is fulfilling, satisfying, and gratifying now, on your journey to success, rather than when you finally achieve success.

Reading this lesson right now, in this moment, is an indicator that your life is changing. The very fact that you are reading these words is an indication that your life is moving forward and that you're making changes. Congratulations to you! Congratulations to moving beyond The Drunk Monkey and all of its insanity, and taking action in a way that is going to be positive and productive, so let me begin our lesson today with this idea.

Happy People Succeed Easier
Happy people are more attractive, more charismatic, easier to do business with, and happiness can aid in your success. Happiness can become a tool that you use to drive your business.

When you are fulfilled and satisfied now, when you are feeling amazing and energized, everything works better. You're more in a flow and things just happen, good positive, amazing things happen, and it makes you even more optimistic and you get on a positive upward spiral, and you're hard to beat, and you're faster to market. You're quicker to make a decision. These traits make you much more effective than you were before, and they are accessed by the energy of happiness. Inspiration!

Stop protecting yourself from all the people who aren't attacking you.
The Drunk Monkey in your head has one goal, to keep you alive longer. It was conditioned from birth to believe and trust the people who were in your tribe; the people who raised you.

The Drunk Monkey becomes convinced that these people are doing it the right way and everyone else is doing it the wrong way. The Drunk Monkey gets conditioned into believing these behaviors (your behaviors) are right, and those behaviors (done by others) are wrong. This makes you exclusive rather than inclusive. When you're exclusive and you encounter someone who behaves differently then you, you to go into a state of resistance. When you're in resistance, you cannot be harmonious, happy, and peaceful.   Resistance is repelling.

When you're resisting, when you're in a state of negativity, you're declaring that they are wrong, and you are right. The moment you declare someone wrong is the moment you go into an energy of negativity. Negativity is not attractive to the things that you want, Negativity is attractive to the things that you don't want. When you're in a negative state, you lack optimism.

I just got off the phone with a client. She has been prospecting like a mad woman, and she is finding more leads than she has ever found in her entire life, and loving it, but she is going through a transition that all prospectors go through, which is the understanding that not every prospect will lead to a sale. She has one particular prospect that she made this incredible pitch to. She felt very optimistic about him saying yes. The prospect responded in kind and was so excited, and when she made the proposal, she never heard from him again, and she started to make up all of these stories about how wrong he was, and she was mad, and ticked off, he's an idiot, and he doesn't get it, and, and, and.

All of these negative hallucinations about how wrong he was and if he only knew, only made her more angry and upset. Of course, when she finally did call him, she was not in an optimistic place, and after our conversation, she realized that she was resisting him, which caused him to run away.

My friend.  Nobody is attacking you. If a person doesn't want what you want, it doesn't mean that they're wrong. Because somebody operates in a different way than you operate, it doesn't mean that they're attacking you and that they're wrong. People are just doing what they're doing. They're making decisions and choices that are best for them in the moment, based on what they've experienced in their lives. It has nothing to do with you.

Even more importantly, you are not psychic. You can't read people's minds. You don't know what they're thinking, yet if your listen to The Drunk Monkey (that talking in your head) it operates as if it is psychic.  The talking in your head believes that it does know what people are thinking, and it makes things up about people. The Drunk Monkey makes things up about how they should behave and why behave the way they do.  But The Drunk Monkey doesn't have a clue why people are the way they are.  The Drunk Monkey wants to dominate people by making them wrong.  Give this up! Let go of your resistance to others. Stop protecting yourself from all of the people who aren't attacking you. They are just being themselves, which happens to be different than what you expect.  Someone else's opinion is not dangerous to you.

Homework
Notice how the people all around you are simply doing the best they can. Stop resisting their attitude, their mind set, their behavior. Stop pretending that you are the ruler of the universe. Stop pretending that all people should bow down to your infinite wisdom and operate in life the way that you operate in life.

Remember that everybody has been trained by different groups, and therefore have different ways of operating, and nobody is right or wrong. If in fact, you want to experience happiness and utilize that energy to achieve success, you must let go of your resistance to others.

Seven Steps to Happiness and Success

If you are a sales person, an entrepreneur, or an executive, then this is going to be an inspiring lesson for you on how to achieve happiness that will lead to success. And I know that that is a strange way to put it, because most people relate success leading to happiness. Yet, nothing could be further from the truth.

Over the last 17 years, I have worked with 8,000 entrepreneurs, sales people, and executives to achieve incredible happiness and peace, which we then applied to their business and their projects, and accelerated everything that they did. So many came to me successful beyond imagination and tragically unhappy with the life they had created.  Success did not bring the happiness they sought.  Don't get me wrong, they were relatively happy people.  They just lacked that deep profound sense of happiness that I am promising you.

Over the years, people under my tutelage have had quantum leaps in their ability to make money and produce extraordinary results.  The results came because they worked on their inner happiness and harmony first, and applied that energy to their projects.

Why does happiness lead to success?
Happiness is attractive. Happiness creates charisma. Happiness is going to pull things to you. When you are someone who has that inner glow, more people want to do business with you. More people will say yes to you. Opportunities will come your way. You'll have the energy and enthusiasm to complete what you start. In the end, the person who is happy, fulfilled, and satisfied is more productive. You are going to find that taking on these very simple steps to happiness will lead to incredible success, and that success will not be the destructive kind of success that I have seen so many thousands of times in my career.

Most people achieve success hoping that they will finally be happy and fulfilled, only to be disappointed by the fact that they are now wealthy, but still the same person. It is who you are and your perspective on life that determines whether you are happy or not. So, let's start off with the first step of the seven steps to happiness and success.

Realize That Your Mind is Not Your Friend.

Your mind, which I call The Drunk Monkey, doesn't care about your goals and dreams. Have you ever noticed that when you set new goals and new dreams, the first person to talk you out of it is the chatter in your head. It is imperative that you begin to see that there are two people. There is The Drunk Monkey, which is a non-stop talking machine that never shuts up and has an opinion on everything, and then there is the person who is listening, which is who you really are. Your goal is to begin to realize that there is talking in your head, which is really trying to keep you safe, and then there is a person who is listening which is trying to have an amazing life.

These two elements are opposing. The person who is listening has surrendered control of your life on accident. In order for you to achieve happiness and success, you have got to stop trusting in the mind and practice trusting your gut. Your gut will say go, do it, you can do this. And your mind will think of a million reasons why you can't. Your gut will say, take the action, say yes, go for it, and your mind will say, you are not good enough, you're stupid, you have done it in the past and it didn't work out.

Begin to see that the mind's job is to keep you alive, it's a part of your biology. Notice that today, and watch how it brings relief and it brings more happiness.

Start to recognize that all suffering is a function of your opinion. All opinions are nothing more than an estimation of the mind about the truth of reality. Reality cannot be discerned from the mind. The mind sees life through a filter called your perception.  

I know it sounds like philosophical mumbo-jumbo, but if you will read these words over and over and over, if you will read them again, and again, and again, a transformation will begin to occur within you. A new you will begin to emerge, a happier, more fulfilled, more satisfied version of yourself, someone who is encouraged and empowered and willing to take risks and willing to take action on things that you previously were afraid to take action on, bold. That is who you are becoming in taking these lessons.

Homework Assignment.
To achieve happiness and success, I want you to begin to notice that The Drunk Monkey, all that talking in your head, is not on your side and doesn't care about your goals and dreams. This will give you the energy and the enthusiasm to stop listening to the mind and start listening to your gut.  
 

Give The Gift

Now you are reading our next Lesson. Do you understand how special that makes you? I don't think you do. Most people start, but they never finish. Most people begin, but they don't complete. Congratulate yourself right now, okay?

Subtle changes and differences are already happening just because you are exposing yourself to this material. The more you do it, the more empowered you will become. The more empowered you are, the effective you will be in everything that you do.

Unblock The Flow
Happiness does not come from success, but happiness can definitely aid you in the accomplishment of all of your goals and dreams. To accomplish really big dreams, you have to open yourself up to what's possible and unblock the flow in your life.

Negativity is the resistance you have to how life actually is. Each of us is trying acquire, accomplish and move forward. That's who you are, right? If you were attracted to this material, then you are someone who is committed to achieving, accomplishing, and succeeding.

When you try to accomplish more, life pushes back.  So often, life doesn't match your expectations, and you go into a state of negativity. You resist what life is.  The only problem is that you get what you focus on. So, if you're focused on how life shouldn't be this way or that way, then you will get more of what you're focused on.  This simply makes your life harder then you want.  Which creates a negative loop.  Life doesn't have to be hard.  Even when you are doing hard things.  What makes something hard is your unwillingness to accept it as it is.

Success doesn't come easily, which is why success formulas of the past have included instructions to be persistent and diligent.  In the pursuit of success you naturally run into hidden barriers of resistance.  What you might not know is that the resistance to the barriers and challenges are within our own mind. Broken expectations.  Wishing it was easier.  Hopelessness.  Frustration.  When you have an opinion that life should be different, your success process is harder then it needs to be.  This puts you into a negative state. If you want happiness AND success, then it is absolutely essential that you let go of your resistance and accept the process exactly as it is.  This will put you into the flow.

Give The Gift
The law of contribution states that level of your happiness and success is directly proportional to the number of people you serve selflessly. The more you give, the more you will receive.

Most people want to take, take, take, take. Most people want to acquire and get and pull things to themselves.  Most do not realize that this is a lack-based mindset. The most successful people in the world are givers, not takers. The most successful people in the world contribute, make a difference, uplift, support.

To achieve happiness and success, look for ways to be of service to others unconditionally. I call this giving The Gift. These are the four steps I recommend:

A.  Connect with people that you wouldn't normally connect with.

Instead of skipping over people and moving on with your life, stop. Connect. Seek to understand who these people are. See who is out there. Notice that the world is filled with interesting and unusual people.

B.  Find out what their goals and dreams are.

Be interested.  What are they up to? What are they committed to? Where are they going? What are they doing next? What are they trying to accomplish right now in their world.  What do they need to move their life forward?

C.  See if there is a way you can help or support their goals and dreams.

Make a difference on the spot.  Be a gift to them.  Contribute.  Make a difference.  Help.  Support.

For example: Do you have some information for them? Do you have some knowledge to share? Can you introduce them to someone? Can you point them in the right direction?

Important:  Don't do things that put you out or disrupt your life.  Do things that are mutually beneficial for both of you. Authentically give without any agenda or need to have them reciprocate.

D.  Watch the miracles happen in your own life. 

You are going to be blown away by all the amazing things that will happen to you when you become an unconditional giver.  I think you will be equally shocked by the realization that you've been stopping the flow by being stingy. 

I want you to consider that you have been afraid that your goals won't manifest.  So you try harder and push more.  This makes you feel like you don't have time to help others because you are to busy making your stuff happen. 

Stop yourself from being in this fear-based mindset.  Practice being in a prosperity-based mindset of giving, contributing, making a difference, and uplifting. Then, be open to all of The Gifts that will come your way.

People who have it all get even more. People who have nothing get even less. When you give, you will receive.  Be open to receiving gifts in return. Allow others to help and serve you.

Homework:
Give The Gift to everyone in your life.  Connect with people you wouldn't normally connect with. Find out what their goals and dreams are right now. See if there is a way that you can make a difference for them on the spot.  Be open to all the miracles, magic and opportunities that comes your way.

inspired action

You are now getting set to achieving happiness and success.  The key is to take the energy of happiness and channel it into your goals and dreams. I call this state, INSPIRED ACTION!!! 

Of course this is not the only way you can succeed.  Success can absolutely occur because of sheer will, persistence and forcing things to happen.   I don't recommend that using that energy to succeed.

For example: Persistence is powerful.  Unless you have a fearful reason to use it.  If you use persistence because you are afraid that things aren't going to work out, you will create a lot of chaos in your life.  If you allow yourself to get mad and upset in your life, then you will begin to use force to make things happen. In other words, persistence from fear is life depriving.  Persistence from positive expectations is life enhancing.  You are either in Inspired Action or forceful action. 

This takes practice.  You must learn to be in a non resistant state.  No matter what happens in your life and your business, you accept it as it is, align with it fully, and then continue on. Don't allow yourself to use the energies of anger, frustration, domination and control to succeed.  Can you get results with forceful energy?  Yes.  But using life depriving energy will cost you dearly.  Many successful people lose their friends and family, burn bridges with colleagues and find themselves alone.

The bottom line is this... Most people do not possess thick enough skin to make success happen through sheer will and force.  After coaching more than 8,000 people to achieve happiness and success, I've found that few posses what it takes to succeed through the old paradigms.

The new paradigm of success is to experience your happiness and joy now and then take that energy and put it into all the projects to increase the likelihood of them happening. By operating with life enhancing energy you have a greater likelihood of success. 

Many ask me, "Does this mean that you don't need skills to succeed?" No, you need skills in your chosen field. Do you need an expertise in a field to succeed? Generally yes.  My point is this.  Take your skills and your expertise and then infuse inspiration and joy into them and you will increase the likelihood of achieving success, because you will be attractive.

Often I find my clients have tricked themselves into believing that frustration, doubt and uncertainty are a normal part of the success process.  But this is not true.  The Drunk Monkey naturally believes that some day in the future, once I'm successful, then I'm going to be happy. Therefore it is okay to sacrifice my happiness and experience now.  But, that is not the truth. Some day in the future, when you are successful, you will still be you.  Only then you will be you with more money.  The you, that you are now and in the future will continue to suffer and resist the situation. 

There is no need to suffer now. There is no need to feel frustrated and agitated now. You can absolutely go through the process of success while experiencing profound amounts of happiness. Some day keeps you in the status of being a victim of your life now. Some day, when I finally have the money, then I'm going to buy a yacht and I'm going to relax and enjoy my life. In the meantime, I am going to suffer through until I get there. This is how most people live. It is time for you to give that up.

The circumstances of your life will never be enough to make you truly happy. Happiness is a point of view, it is a perspective. And it is my goal to teach you that perspective in these lessons, so that you can experience your happiness and your joy now and apply that energy to all of your projects to multiply your success.

Get connected to your higher purpose and apply that to your business.
You are here to experience something. Not to achieve or accomplish.  I promise that you will achieve and accomplish but that's not what you want.  You want what you think accomplishing will feel like. 

What will it be like someday in the future?  Because the feelings you want are available to be experienced right now in this moment. Your circumstances don't have to change for you to feel it. 

Most people are stuck in this idea that "I don't have what I want now, therefore, I can't feel what I want until it get it."  That is a lie. Simply determine what it will feel like once you are successful. What is the feeling or experience that I am going after? The feeling is absolutely what you want out of your life.

Some people can do the dishes and feel completely and totally on purpose. Others can achieve the greatest success of their lives and feel like a failure. The external world does not determine how you feel. Your ability to manage your inner world determines how you feel.

I would like you to answer five questions:

1. What are your daydreams about?
2. When do you feel most fulfilled, satisfied and inspired?
3. If you accumulated all the money you would ever need, then how would you spend your time?
4. Ultimately, what will the fulfillment of all of those dreams do for you?
5. What is the feeling or experience you will have?

As you answer that last question, you are beginning to clarify your true purpose in life; what you want as a feeling or experience. Why do you want to achieve what you say you want to achieve so that you will feel something like that.

Homework
Begin to adjust your life so that you start to feel and experience your higher purpose in everything you do. Begin to notice that this feeling everywhere in your life already. Get present to how amazing your life already is.  Release the things that don't make you feel that and take on the things that do make you feel that.

This is a structure that will cause you to feel incredible happiness on a regular basis, which will make you extraordinarily attractive to all that you desire.