More Ways the Ego Keeps You Unhappy

Let’s take a look at the nature of satisfaction and happiness. If I were to ask you if, overall, you were satisfied and happy about your life and your company, where would you look to answer that question? Having asked that question to thousands of people, I’d be willing to bet that what you would do is to compare how your life/company is to how you would like your life/company to be to come up with an answer.

And if I asked you to give yourself a score, on a scale of 1 to 10, for your level of satisfaction and happiness, I’d be willing to bet that your score would not be a 10. Why? Because how it is is never how we would like it to be. As we get closer to having how it is be how we would like it to be, we just keep adding more “stuff” to our list of how we would like it to be.

The consequence is that we never experience our life/company being a 10; we never experience true satisfaction and happiness, which is exactly what the ego wants.

The bottom line is that the ego will ALWAYS tell you that your satisfaction and happiness lies outside of you and is a function of the circumstances of life. We literally think that one day we will be totally satisfied and happy because life will finally turn out and we’ll have everything exactly the way we want. Get the cruelty of that joke! It never happens and will never happen.

The “truth” of the matter is that at any moment, regardless of the circumstances, you can choose to be happy and satisfied, to appreciate and feel grateful for what you already have, and to stop waiting for life to turn out better. Because you know what? Your life has already turned out. This is what it looks like when it turns out. This. Right now. It all lives in your thinking and your conversation.

Complaints: another ego game

What’s not normally seen, and why persistent complaints is an ego game, is that in every case, where you have a persistent complaint, you get a payoff and there is a cost. So it looks like the reason you are complaining is that you want whatever it is that you are complaining about to stop, or change, or whatever. But that never happens. And you keep complaining. So the fact of the matter is that’s not really what you want. You want the payoff associated with the complaint.

What are these payoffs? Here are some of them: you get to be right about whatever it is you are complaining about and/or make someone else wrong. You get to validate yourself and/or invalidate someone else.

Since you don’t really take action on your complaint, you settle for complaining, you get to play safe and avoid the risk associated with confronting the issue. And, of course, you get to blame others for the situation and avoid taking responsibility.

Sound like fun? Can you get that you do this?

So the situation continues, you keep complaining, and what you get are these payoffs, and it’s the payoffs that keep you addicted to the game, even though there is a huge cost, which the ego delights in you paying. What are the costs?

You end up feeling like a victim, at the effect of somebody else’s behavior, powerless and frustrated. What’s the possibility of genuine joy and satisfaction when you feel like a victim? None, nada, zilch.

Is there a solution? For sure. What comes to mind is the Serenity Prayer from Alcoholics Anonymous: God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can and the wisdom to know the difference.

In other words, if you can deal with the situation you are complaining about, deal with it. Confront the issue or the person, take action, and do your best to get the situation resolved. If you can’t, just accept the situation and move on. Stay happy, stay joyous, stay in a place of peace, and take back your power from your ego.

Is there really a truth?

I really find that the hardest thing for most people I talk to to get is my assertion that there is no such thing as reality. There really isn’t. You think what you see is really there. It isn’t. What’s worse, you actually believe that what you see is the truth. It also isn’t.

If you’re still with me, the question you should be asking yourself is: what’s determining my reality? Actually, it’s pretty simple. You know that voice in your head? The one you call self-talk, or thinking, or mind chatter? Well inside of that voice is the story of your life. It’s the sum total of all of your life experiences, the meaning you gave to those experiences, and the decisions you made as a result.

Humans think they see with their eyes. That is one of the many illusions of life. It’s not the truth. We see with our minds. We take that internal conversation, the story I just discussed, and project it out onto the world and that becomes our reality.

What’s the real significance of all of this? It lies in how human beings operate. Listen to this carefully: our actions are ALWAYS exactly the appropriate action any human being would take given how life occurs for them. In other words, we are always reacting and what we react to is how whatever is in front of us occurs for us.

And who is determining how whatever is in front of us occurs for us? We are!

Each of us is playing a game called: this is my life. And we are the ones totally responsible for how that game plays out. As many of the great teachers teach: it’s never what happens that determines the outcome. It’s how we respond to what happens that determines the outcome. And we are always choosing our reactions.

So give up the victim game, stop complaining and stop blaming others if things are not going the way you would like. The good news is that you have total access to the only person whose determining how things are turning out: YOU.

In conclusion, take responsibility for what comes out of your mouth. Everything you say becomes your truth. If you understand this, you can really create a magnificent life.

The Power of Your Intention

Do you know how powerful your intention is? How important it is to believe

in your hopes and dreams? How critical it is to focus on what you want

rather than what you don’t want?

I can’t go into great detail in the space allotted here but here’s the

bottom line: THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS AN IDLE THOUGHT. Please read that

line again as it is a statement of a fundamental law in the physical

universe. Every thought you have literally sends a pulse of energy out

into the universe where it gathers “support” and comes back to you

multiplied.

If you knew how true that was, you would be much more diligent in managing

the thoughts you allow yourself to have. The average human being has in

excess of 50,000 thoughts a day and unfortunately, for that average human

being, most of those thoughts are negative and/or focused on what he/she

doesn’t want. Is it any wonder why most people are unhappy with their

lives and their companies?

Send out fear thoughts and watch yourself have lots of things to be afraid of. Be negative and your life and your company will be a nightmare. Focus on what you don’t want and have lots of what you don’t want.

Conversely, be happy and grateful, intend that all your hopes and dreams

become your reality, stay in a place of peace and contentment, and expect

the best, not just some of the time but all of the time, and just watch

the universe shower you with everything you want. And if you’re the leader

of a company, a president, CEO, owner, or partner, do this and watch your

company grow and prosper.

Give it a try. You have nothing to lose and everything to gain.

Social Media

At a meeting of the National Speakers Association and in a session about the advantages of all the social media sites. The main ones to be on are linkedin, facebook, youtube, twitter and blogs. You should really have accounts on all of those sites and have a blog. Why? You can use these sites for many busiuness reasons: First, it allows you to create an on line dialog with people you want to network with. It allows you to get feedback on ideas. It's becoming a great marketing tool. And you can use these sites to do research. Finally, when your blog is connected to your web site and you blog regularly, it increases your google ranking. So go for it.