I cannot speak about any of the events of the course in this forum. To do that would take away from your own experience when you attend for yourself. I have been to several events with Peak Potentials and they continue to enlighten, empower and surprise.

If you have never heard of Peak Potentials or would like to learn more, you can sign up for a Millionaire Mind Evening Teleseminar or get a copy of the book Secrets of the Millionaire Mind.

I look forward to your success.

Did you ever notice when you buy a new car, you start to see the same car everywhere you go? Well, when you buy something as unique as a mobile home park, you get the same reaction. Everywhere we go, our eyes are drawn to parks on the side of the road and they draw us in to look at them. Sometimes to see what features they have that we should consider and other times to see if they would be a park that we would consider buying. Either, they start to pop out of the woodwork.

That is the think about being down in the southern states. A significant percentage of the population lives in mobile homes. On Saturday, we drove to Milledgeville, GA and on the drive into the city we notice tons of single homes that were actually mobile homes. Mind you, these were good looking homes with finely trimmed lawns and trees. This is not quite like the typical mobile home park that is ill-kept and not the prettiest place you could visit.

In the future, that will not be our parks. We plan to turn our parks (yes, “parks.” we plan on buying more) into respectable communities where the residents are proud to live there. Why should it be any other way? We’re not talking about Ritz Carlton or Augusta National, just a nice place to live. That is our vision.

I have been going through my workouts the last few days keeping an eye on what can be improved. I’m hoping you can help point out what I can do better.

I have already broken the schedule down into days for the large muscle groups such as legs, back and chest with another day dedicated to the smaller muscle groups.

According to Sean Nalewanyj, when building muscle it is important not to over-work the muscles. Therefore, I have chosen to alternate my workouts so that I can do one workout with one grip style (ie. narrow or wide) or choice of legs (ie. single or double), then switch during the next workout. As you can see from the schedule, this creates a full 8-day cycle, including my rest day. My problem arises from the fact that day 8 would be a very long workout session, which I would like to keep under an hour.

So, should I break day 8 into two days, stretching the cycle to 9 days and extending recovery time for the large muscle groups, or should I simply rework the plan all together? My goals for building muscle is to achieve greater strength more than size. I know this will be a success, however, if I get bigger, I wouldn’t complain either.

Originally, I decided to to upper body on one day and lower body the other. This left a day of rest for each set of muscles. Of course, I had heard that 2 days of rest is best and I had simply forgotten about that. Two days ago, I had worked on my chest and back and this morning my chest is still very sore. So I decided to break it up into a 3 day routine. I so glad that it is easy to maintain and adjust using the tools that I have chosen to use.

Even with these changes, I have already been able to achieved significant gains in the two weeks that I have been going to the gym. I look forward to learning more from Sean’s next emails on building muscle.

Well, yesterday I got an email from Sean Nalewanyj from the Free Muscle Building Guide and it was all about tracking being the most important aspect of body building. After signing up to his free 8-part email course to learn more, I headed over to his NalewanyjFitness YouTube Page and watched his video about building arm muscles. That was a very interesting video and it prompted me to put together a routine of exercises for myself.

After figuring out all the exercises I wanted to do and on what schedule, I needed a nice, neat way to monitor my progress. So I did a Google search for exercise logging tools and found one called the Exercise Diary 3.1.0. I was thinking I would have to do my own, but this tool worked out very well.

After customizing the tool for my needs, I was finally able to get right into my new routine and headed out to the gym to work my chest and back and then went for a swim. Satisfied with my workout, I headed for a cold shower. Being so hot and humid in Middle Georgia, I am really getting used to the cold shower.

This new knowledge and tool will help me achieve the body I want in record time. Just one more small step on the road to success.

So I looked up what needed to be done at WordPress and quickly found out an easy and clean way to get the job done. An hour later, after finding an appropriate image, figuring out what I wanted everything to look like and what it was to do, I’ve succeeded. See how easy it can be to be successful? Several small steps can lead to greater things. So please check out my new 404 page.

In the first point, it is not necessary to avoid failure to gain success. In fact, it is difficult to succeed at all unless you give yourself the chance to fail first. So comes the phrase “fail forward fast”. This means that instead of worrying about failure at whatever it is you are doing, take action and get started. If you fail, learn from the mistakes and apply that new knowledge towards your goals. Correct and continue.

The second point is that you must focus your attention on the success you are working to achieve. As Earl Nightingale mentions in the video The Strangest Secret, your mind does not know the difference between failure or success and it will return to you whatever you place in it. So while it is important to accept your failures and learn from them, it is even more important that you do not dwell on the failure itself but focus on your upcoming success. By focusing on failure, you will only gain more failure.

Some things I do to keep focused on my goals is to write them down where I can see them. I create vision boards with pictures of the life I want. I create videos that incorporate multimedia to spark my memory and imagination.

Some examples:

I have two pieces of paper taped to my laptop. One that lists my top 5 passions (to figure this out read The Passion Test
). The other is a lists of actions I need to do each day that are consistent each day and support the achievement of my goals as shown on my list of passions.

Another is that I have placed an image on my computer’s desktop that shows what I want and every time I start my computer, shut it down, or change programs, I see that image. Currently, the image I have is the home that I designed as our future home is Costa Rica.

I also created a video around the idea of living in Costa Rica. It has images from the house and the surroundings as well as sounds that I would hear if I was actually there.

Finally, one very important thing that I do that helps me focus on success is to day dream. Some people thing day dreaming is wasteful. I have to disagree. Day dreaming often triggers new ideas or reminds me of things I need to do. Most importantly, it helps me focus on something I want. For those that think day dreaming is wasteful, I would suggest that they have not defined their dreams clearly enough to make day dreaming pleasant. I would point them towards The Passion Test: The Effortless Path to Discovering Your Life Purpose to correct that situation.

As simple as this video is, it goes a long way to help people see that failure is not the problem when it comes to having trouble reaching success. The problem comes when people let those failures stop them. When they stop getting up after getting knocked down. As you let your failures become the excuses that weigh you down, your dreams start to fade.

None of the people in this video let the “experts” determine their success. None of them agreed that they would never succeed. They knew what they wanted and they did what needed to be done to get their. It may have hurt at the time, but they continued on.

And it’s not like any of these people had instant success. Looking into their histories, you will probably find that they were some of the hardest working individuals in their fields before they achieved greatness. In fact, the supposed failures that they had experienced in the past could have been the reason that they had to work so hard to succeed. Maybe they did have a fault that COULD have prevented them from succeeding, but they didn’t let that stop them.

Personally, I have no aspirations to be as good at a sport as Michael Jordan, as funny as Lucille Ball, as inventive as Thomas Edison, or as original as Walt Disney, etc. What I do know is I have dreams that I want to make come true and I have ideas of how I am going to do that. I also know that…

• whenever I play a sport, I put everything I have into it.
• I am not afraid to bring out the humour.
• I have ideas that will make a difference in other people’s lives.
• my creativity has a power of its own.
• etc.

What I am saying is that I am not afraid to put myself out there on a limb to achieve something I want.

Everything you can dream can be achieved, it is just a matter of finding your path. The road may be rough and windy. Look at the journey as a blessing, not as a penance. Take from your journey lessons that will help you on the road ahead.

Stop letting failure stop you. Learn from failure and let it drive you to success.

Typically, when people think of getting “out-of-the-box” they think in terms of opening your mind to new ideas. What the Arbinger Institute and Brian Klemmer have done is put this phrase into the context of the behaviors that we exhibit when we are relating to other people. Not just face-to-face, but also when you are simply thinking of other people. In fact, these “in your head” relationships are more important than anything outside your head.

Brian Klemmer and the Arbinger Institute  talk about two types of behaviors:

Out-of-the-Box: Seeing yourself and others more or less as we are – as people.

In-the-Box: Seeing yourself and others in a systematically distorted way – others are mere objects.

Whether we are in-the-box or out-of-the-box all starts with self-betrayal. Self-betrayal follows this sequence:

1. An act contrary to what we feel we should do for another person is called an act of self-betrayal.
2. When we betray ourselves, we begin to see the world in a way that justifies our self-betrayal.
   • We see ourselves as more deserving.
   • We see others as less deserving.
3. When we see a self-justifying world, our view of reality becomes distorted.
4. So…when we betray ourselves, you enter the box – you become self-deceived.
   • We inflate others’ faults.
   • We inflate our own virtues.
   • We inflate the value of things that justify our self-betrayal.
   • We blame.
5. Overtime, certain boxes become characteristics of us, and we carry them with us.
6. By being in-the-box, we provoke others to be in the box as well.
7. In the box, we invite mutual mistreatment and obtain mutual justification. We collude in giving each other reason to stay in-the-box.

What doesn’t work in-the-box and why?

Attempting to change others – WE are the problem!
Doing our best to “cope” with others – The blame continues.
Leaving – The box stays with us.
Communicating – We communicate our “in-the-box” feelings.
Implementing new skills/techniques – Leads to more sophisticated blame.
Changing our behavior – We continue to see other people as objects.

The box is a metaphor for how we resist others. We may be in-the-box towards some people and out-of-the-box towards others. When we have out-of-the-box moments with our out-of-the-box relationships, we allow ourselves to question our own virtues which allows us to be out-of-the-box in that moment. If we recognize and carry this self-questioning to our typically in-the-box relationships, it helps us get out-of-the box with them.

By deciding to do something for someone else, we are immediately out-of-the-box towards them in that moment.

Knowing the Material

1. Self-betrayal leads to self-deception and “the box”.
2. When we are in-the-box, we cannot focus on results.
3. Our influence and success will depend on being out-of-the-box.
4. We get out-of-the-box as you cease resisting others.

Living the Material

1. Don’t look for perfection. Do continue to become better.
2. Don’t use the words “the box”. Do use the techniques.
3. Don’t look for others’ boxes. Do look for your own.
4. Don’t accuse others of being in the box. Do strive to stay out of your own.
5. Don’t give up on yourself when you discover you’ve been in the box. Do push forward.
6. Don’t deny you’ve been in the box. Do apologize and push forward.
7. Don’t focus on what others are doing wrong. Do focus on what you can do right.
8. Don’t worry whether others are helping you. Do worry whether you are helping others.

The most important concept of the box is this:

We won’t know who we work and live with until we leave the box and join them.

This book is very well written. It takes the form of a story about a new manager in a company with a fantastic reputation. You follow along as he meets with the upper management of the company and learns why and how the company has achieved such success. It shows how the management learned from their mistakes, and continue to make mistakes. With the story aspect of the book, it becomes very easy to comprehend the information presented and why it works.

I highly recommend Leadership and Self-Deception: Getting Out of the Box. It really opens your eyes to how you interact with people and allows you to stand beside yourself and see why some relations work and some don’t and how to make them all better.