Personal Expansion Fundamentals: Part 2

   The second fundamental element of the Personal Expansion Principle that you must master to complete a solid track record of accomplishment is your willingness to go above and beyond what people expect of you. It’s easier for you to learn from your failures than it is to do more than what you’re paid to do. Accordingly, the notion of productivity above and beyond the boundaries of requirement and payment received will not sit well with you unless you are determined to expand your being, thinking, and doing.

   This is so for several reasons. When you have operated under someone else’s rules and regulations, you are used to selling your time for money and you expect to make the most money in the least amount of time possible. Your “time for money” mindset is not a Personal Expansion Mindset because it misses the crucial point: your personal expansion has nothing to do with exchanging your time for someone else’s money, but everything to do with your personal creation of value that will benefit others.

   Another reason why you may not want to embrace the element that requires that you go above and beyond what people expect of you is that somehow you believe that you’re entitled to expand just because you showed up to work or otherwise function for someone else’s benefit. What you fail to realize is that everybody else in your same situation also showed up to do exactly what you’re doing—on time, and not late like you are as an employee or volunteer! News Flash: the person who creates their own life and future must work harder over longer hours, days, months, and years than she or he did as an employee or volunteer.

   A third reason you may not want to go above and beyond what people expect of you is that you haven’t yet been programmed to go the extra mile or distance yourself from those around you by the quality, quantity, and content of your product or service. The one seeking personal expansion must strive to do the work, write the book, compose the music, sell the product, or provide the service with ever-increasing skill and effectiveness. In short, only proactive, forward-looking, and resourceful people will attain the personal expansion they claim to be seeking.

   When you go above and beyond what people expect of you, you set yourself apart from most people. In fact, you place yourself in a position where you have few—if any—competitors! Having such a posture allows you to own what you do and take pride in it.

   Under these circumstances, the product or service you provide has personal meaning to you. Also, you seek to improve your own performance and look for ways to upgrade or otherwise improve the entire process of whatever it is in which you’re engaged. Your productive and attitudinal mindset change is unmistakably and immediately noticeable to your clients and customers. It sets you apart—even if no one else cares—because you feel better about what you’re doing and you’re no longer selling your time for money: you’re creating value greater than what you could ever receive in dollars and you are adding worth to yourself through your conscientious effort to do what you do to the best of your ability.

   Your will and determination to go above and beyond what people expect of you causes a radical change in your work ethic and your own sense of self-worth and appreciation of who you are as a productive person who is no longer alienated from the product or service you provide. This behavior of yours, over a consistent time, begins to earn you a reputation that will follow you wherever you go. This reputation is the bedrock of the solid track record that you have established that will lead you to your ultimate personal expansion.

Personal Expansion Fundamentals: Part 1

 The Personal Expansion Principle (PEP) is not related to who you know, what you know, the economic climate, or luck. It is the result of a process of adhering to universal laws that have stood the test of time. This process of personal expansion includes learning and practicing 7 fundamental elements of the Personal Expansion Principle: 1) learn from past failures; 2) go above and beyond what people expect of you; 3) show initiative and leadership; 4) exhibit patience and self-control; 5) excel at cooperation; 6) respect and tolerate others; and 7) function with a positive attitude.

   The first of these fundamental elements of the Personal Expansion Principle that you must master is probably one of the most important lessons you must learn early in your quest for personal expansion. You will not begin to experience the personal expansion available to you if you do not learn from past failures.

   Failures will inevitably come to you along the road to your ultimate expansion. Indeed, they are the stepping stones to your expansion. You will never learn from your successes unless they were unforeseen and purely accidental—many successes have come from failures to achieve intended results. With this minor exception, you can only learn from your failures. If you can learn from your failures, that learning itself lays down a solid track record that will aid you in your continued expansion.

   Every expanded person has failed utterly at something. You must understand that part of the process of personal expansion is moving through failure without being discouraged or disheartened to the point of giving up on your dream. Personal Expansion is not for the faint of heart, the cowardly in spirit, or the proud. To expand in every area of your life, you must not be easily intimidated. You must be willing to strengthen yourself. You must fight your fears, admit mistakes, and add to your learning.

   Be self-confident enough to take risks, but wise enough to assess the risks, consider the rewards, and then proceed. If you have done your homework properly, then when you fail you can pinpoint where you went wrong. You may have begun with the wrong assumptions, insufficient facts, or dependence on an unreliable source. Wherever you went wrong, whatever you miscalculated in the environment or whoever you misjudged, overvalued, or undervalued will become the lesson plan you use to learn, grow, and add to your store of wisdom. To learn from past failures is never to lose your boldness and self-assured status on the one hand, and always to gain humility and even more fearlessness on the other.

Overlooking the Visible: Part 2

 The electronic theory explains how all matter has evolved from one homogeneous Original or Primary Substance. However, this theory does not explain how motion originated to create or produce something different from the Original or Primary Substance from which the negatively and positively charged electricity particles came. It is here that the Universal Law of Cause and Effect comes in.

   The Law of Cause and Effect says that for every effect—whether motion, release of energy, a tree growing, or rain falling—there is a cause. Science is quite clear that living things can only come from—be caused by—living things. Only Life can give birth to life. Science is also clear that if anything is moving—whether that thing is animate or inanimate—its movement has been caused by someone or something.

   At the beginning of creation, the Original Cause of all things was the Intelligent Spirit: God. What He used to set all things in motion was the creative process.

   Science understands that sound is transmitted through waves. Technically, in physics, mathematics, and related fields, a wave is a disturbance—a change from a resting value—of one or more fields (physical quantities, represented by numbers that have a value for each point in space-time) such that the field values oscillate repeatedly about a stable resting value. So much for our technical discussion of waves because we are concerned only with what causes these vibrations or waves. We now know that sound is the cause of the effect of the waves generated by it.

   So what was the cause of the first sound at the beginning of creation? Are you saying it was the “Big Bang”? If so, Who or What caused the “Big Bang”? Whatever primordial substance there was at the beginning, had to have been created before going “Bang!” It could not have existed before it was created. And once created, it would have been in a state of inertia—unable to move in any way that would ultimately end up in a great “bang” collision.

   No. The Eternal Originator of all things was behind whatever “bang” there may have been, and His Voice, His Word, and His Utterance caused what was inert to become inertia—energy.

   Now this energy is located everywhere in space-time and also in everything—animate and inanimate that is visible and invisible. In fact, it is the invisibility of energy with which we must be concerned, for it is the inside of everything, visible and invisible. And the Law of Polarity makes clear that if there is an inside, there must be an outside, in the same way, that if there is an outside, there must be an inside.

Overlooking the Visible: Part 1

  Before there was anything anywhere at all, there was the Word. So, you must understand that the “beginning” that the first verse of Genesis speaks of is not the “beginning” of time as we know it, or the Word, Himself, but rather the “beginning” of the cosmos which we now inhabit. The Word was the Voice of God who was with God and existed as God. All the things that the Word made were made by the sound emanating from the Word—“Let there be”—after the Spirit of God moved or was in motion (Genesis 1:2-3).

   Only after the Word spoke—generated sound—did anything come into being that was not in being before the Word spoke. So, we must discuss what science has found to be the relationship between sound and first causes.

    To begin with, modern science acknowledges that every chemical atom is made up of particles of only one substance—the Original or Primary Substance—which seems to occupy all space-time. The specific identity of a given atom—whether it turns out to be iron, phosphorous, hydrogen, or some other substance—is a function of how many particles of negatively charged electricity revolve around a center of positively charged electricity, and the rate or speed at which they move. Thus, the number and speed of motion of these particles determine the nature and identity of the specific atom they form.

   Modern science also acknowledges that all material substance—inanimate matter as well as animate matter—has no inherent qualities or characteristics that distinguish one part of this Original Primary Substance from any other part of it. This is extremely significant. Out of this undifferentiated (all the same) Substance, particles are produced that are different from the very Substance that produced them. Their specific difference is that they possess negatively and positively charged energy.

   What I have just discussed is an electronic theory that explains how all matter has evolved from one homogeneous Original or Primary Substance. However, this theory does not explain how motion originated to create or produce something different from the Original or Primary Substance from which the negatively and positively charged electricity particles came. It is here that the Universal Law of Cause and Effect comes in.

   The Law of Cause and Effect says that for every effect—whether motion, release of energy, a tree growing, or rain falling—there is a cause. Science is quite clear that living things can only come from—be caused by—living things. Only Life can give birth to life. Science is also clear that if anything is moving—whether that thing is animate or inanimate—its movement has been caused by someone or something.

   At the beginning of creation, the Original Cause of all things was the Intelligent Spirit: God. What He used to set all things in motion was the creative process.

   Science understands that sound is transmitted through waves. Technically, in physics, mathematics, and related fields, a wave is a disturbance—a change from a resting value—of one or more fields (physical quantities, represented by numbers that have a value for each point in space-time) such that the field values oscillate repeatedly about a stable resting value. So much for our technical discussion of waves because we are concerned only with what causes these vibrations or waves, and we now know that sound is the cause of the effect of the waves generated by it.

Quantum Physics Basics 3

 Some think scientists must just accept that quantum physics explains the material world in terms they find impossible to square with their experience in the larger, “apparent world.” Others think there must be some better, more intuitive theory out there that scientists have yet to discover.

   Even given all of the above, quantum theory has not been able to explain the second of the five fundamental forces of nature—gravity.

   Gravity remains the exclusive territory of Einstein’s general theory of relativity, a firmly non-quantum theory that does not even involve particles. Every intensive effort over the decades to bring gravity under the quantum umbrella and so explain all of the fundamental physics within one “theory of everything” has come to nothing.

   Meanwhile, cosmological measurements indicate that over 95 percent of the universe consists of dark matter and dark energy, phenomena for which scientists have no current explanation within the “standard model,” and conundrums such as the extent of the role of quantum physics in life itself remain unexplained.

   What is known so far is that the “apparent world” is at some level quantum, but what is demonstrably clear is that quantum physics is by no means the last or best word about how the “apparent world” or the other worlds that I have not discussed—alternative universes or states of matter and being that quantum physics experiments allude to, or by implication, predict or confirm their existence.  

   If the quantum world behind our “apparent world” is not objective—i.e., it does not exist in isolation from our observation of it but rather is influenced by our attempts to measure it—then the “apparent world” must not be objective to that same degree.

   This means not only that our engagement with the invisible quantum world influences how it behaves under certain circumstances, but also it means that our engagement with the visible “apparent world” influences how it behaves under certain circumstances.

   So, it must be said that if you cannot “see through and past” the visible all around you, it is extremely doubtful that you will have complete insight into the invisible world that is also all around you through strictly scientific means. You will need something more.

   You will have noticed that I left the elephant in the room undisturbed and unexplored—Spirit, the Original Cause of everything—without discussing IT. I will bring you back to the Alpha and Omega later.

   Suffice it to say that I have raised these challenges in quantum physics to lay the foundation for a fuller discussion of how you can take advantage of what quantum physics has taught you, and use that knowledge (or lack thereof) as a launching pad for initiating your own personal expansion as a human being, who has been called by God to be an ever-expanding, ever-evolving human being, in rank just slightly below that of angels…and so says the Scripture.

Quantum Physics Basics 2

  Over the past five decades or so three theories have been brought together in a catch-as-catch-can manner, known as the “standard model” of particle physics. Despite the fact that this model on close examination appears to be held together by spit and chewing gum, it turns out that until recently, it was the most accurate basic picture of how matter works that had ever been devised.  

   The “standard model” proved its worth in 2012 with the discovery of the Higgs boson, the particle that gives all other fundamental particles their mass, whose existence was predicted on the basis of quantum field theories as far back as 1964.

   Conventional quantum field theories work well in describing the results of experiments at high-energy particle smashers such as CERN’s Large Hadron Collider, where the Higgs was discovered, which probe matter at its smallest scales. (CERN is the world’s largest particle physics laboratory—an international scientific collaboration without parallel in its scale and ambition—located on the border between Switzerland and France.)

   CERN was established by international convention in the aftermath of the second world war by the European Council for Nuclear Research and was originally intended to foster collaborative research into fundamental physics for peaceable purposes. Today, some 12,000 researchers from across the globe use its facilities each year, and it has been the scene of seminal scientific and technological breakthroughs—notably the World Wide Web, invented in 1989 within its doors to allow particle physicists to exchange data across borders.

   In spite of these great scientific breakthroughs using quantum physics, there are some lesser problems that still remain insoluble—e.g., how electrons move or do not move through a solid material and so make a material a metal, an insulator, or a semiconductor.

   The multiplied billions of interactions in these crowded environments require the development of what are called “effective field theories” that gloss over some of the gory details. The challenge quantum physicists face in constructing such theories explains why many important questions in solid-state physics remain unresolved—e.g., why at low temperatures some materials are superconductors that allow current without electrical resistance, and why scientists cannot find a way to get this to work at room temperature.

   Beyond these practical problems lies a huge quantum mystery. At a basic level, quantum physics predicts very strange things about how matter works that are completely at odds with how things seem to work in the “apparent world.”

   For example, quantum particles have the capacity to behave like particles that are located in a single place; or they can act like waves, distributed all over space or in several places. How they appear seems to depend on how scientists choose to measure them, and before they are measured, they seem to have no definite properties at all. This leads to a fundamental insoluble problem related to the nature of basic reality itself.

   One example of this is the paradox of Schrödinger’s cat, in which, thanks to an uncertain quantum process, a cat is left dead and alive at the same time. Quantum particles also seem to be able to affect each other instantaneously even when they are far away from each other. This is called entanglement or, in a phrase coined by Einstein, who contributed to, but was quite critical of quantum theory, “spooky actions at a distance.”

   Even though these quantum powers are by no means completely understood, yet they are in fact the basis of emerging technologies such as ultra-secure quantum cryptography and ultra-powerful quantum computing.

Quantum Physics Basics 1

    Quantum physics (sometimes called quantum mechanics), is the branch of physics that explains how the invisible particles that make up matter behave and the forces with which they interact.

   Accordingly, its venue is in the realm of sub-atomic particles that cannot be seen with the naked eye. Quantum physics is the modern explanation for how atoms work, and why chemistry and biology function as they do. From quantum mechanics, we learn how electrons move through a computer chip, how photons of light get turned into electrical current in a solar panel or amplify themselves in a laser, or how the sun keeps burning.

   Although modern scientists can learn a great deal from quantum physics, it can also—and often does—give them huge headaches. For instance, there is no single quantum theory, which means scientists have had to innovate and adapt in order to alleviate their headaches.

   In the 1920s, Niels Bohr, Werner Heisenberg, Erwin Schrödinger, and others developed quantum mechanics, the basic mathematical framework that underpins (theoretical) quantum physics. It characterizes simple things such as how the position or momentum of a single particle or group of few particles changes over time. But to understand how things actually work in what I prefer to call the “apparent world”—in opposition to what others might call the “real world”—quantum mechanics must be combined with Albert Einstein’s special theory of relativity.

   Einstein’s theory explains what happens when things move very rapidly, and it is his special theory of relatively, combined with quantum physics, that gives quantum physicists the ability to create quantum field theories that alleviate at least some of their headaches.

   There are actually five fundamental forces that govern everything in the universe: 1) Spirit; 2) gravity; 3) the weak force; 4) electromagnetism; and 5) the strong force. Physical sciences are concerned with the last four of these, while three quantum field theories have been able to grapple only with three of these.

   Three different quantum field theories have carved out three of the five fundamental forces by which matter interacts: electro-magnetism (which explains how atoms hold together); the strong nuclear force (which explains the stability of the nucleus at the heart of the atom); and the weak nuclear force (which explains why some atoms undergo radioactive decay).

Start with Faith

  You must begin your quest for personal expansion with faith to understand what you learn on your journey. Then you must apply that learning to your present conditions in ways that lead to your psychological soundness and physical/mental wholeness. When you move in this direction, your present endowment of Eternal Life in joy and fulfillment will begin to help you “see through a glass darkly” your limitless potential for growth and productivity of good.

   And note that it is not some undifferentiated, nebulous faith, but a specific, localized, personal faith in the One God who is the Originator of all that is inanimate and animate wherever situated in the Universal Worlds. To begin your journey on any other ground is to leave the foundation of The Truth (Rock) to build on a lie (sand).

   Once you are firmly established upon The Truth, you are ready to examine your personal relationship with The Truth, for this relationship determines whether you will open up or close down the opportunities for limitless possibilities that simply await your coming.

   So, armed with the foregoing perspective and vantage point, you will begin by looking at what is visibly solid matter—chairs, rocks, tables, and any other thing that comes to your mind—from within or from the inside out.

   This brings me to the first Law you must acknowledge before going further—the Law of Polarity. To exist, a thing must have an opposite pole: if light exists, so must darkness; if there is a left, there must be a right; and if there is good, there must be bad.

   Since science has already proven the biblical statement with which I began, I will continue the next phase of this discussion from a strictly scientific point of view—a view from the lens of quantum physics.

Pre-Suasion: Secret to Marketing Your Positive Ideas

 Pre-Suasion is the notion that there is a specific process of arranging an agreement in your idea's “customer’s” mind even before your actual offer of the idea is made. It is a marketing concept related to the core message you are presenting to your idea “customer” that temporarily changes what is most important to her or him at that given moment. For example, if the person you’re trying to influence is busy or pre-occupied with other things of which you are aware, then your knowledge about, research on, and interest in those things could be the lever that shifts that person’s attention from them to you and what ideas you have to offer.

 

Another advanced idea “marketing” technique is to understand the times and seasons when your idea “customers” are most likely to be amenable to new ideas and change.

 

Studies have shown that people are more likely to change at the beginning of the year, at the beginning of the month, and at the beginning of the week.

 

Having this awareness under your belt will allow you to think creatively about how, when, and under what specific circumstances you will choose to “market” your ideas using pre-suasion.

 

The key to using Pre-suasion and the Seven Principles of Positive Thought Leadership “Marketing” is developing yourself on the inside, so that what you do is not manipulative, but is personally heartfelt and intended for the good of your “customer.”

 

This requires that you invest in your own learning, gain practical experience, and continue to stay on the path to Personal Expansion.

7 Principles of Positive Thought Leadership

 Whenever you attempt to share your ideas with people, you are attempting to influence them to “buy” your ideas and put them into practice. In effect, you are “marketing” your ideas as a “product” to be “bought” in the marketplace of ideas. Your intent is to lead your “customers” to think and behave in positive, life-affirming ways.

 

And although it would appear that your ideas are the “product” that you are attempting to “sell,” you are actually “selling” yourself. Only your perceived credibility with your “customers” will ultimately determine whether your ideas will be “bought” or left unsold.

 

So, the first principle of positive thought leadership “marketing” is to understand that YOU are the message! Therefore, before you put your ideas on the “market” for “sale,” you must be able to demonstrate that you are living by those ideas and that you are a living ad for the usefulness and efficacy of the ideas you want to “market.”

 

The second principle of positive thought leadership “marketing” is embodied in the Law of Reciprocation: people who receive something from you feel a desire and obligation to give something back to you. What can you offer your idea “customers” that will inspire them to give a “yes” to your ideas?

 

The third principle is Scarcity: the notion that there is not much of what is being offered. It is the idea of something being unique, rare, or only available to a few people. How can you “ethically market” your ideas as only available to select people?

 

The fourth principle is Authority: the notion that if someone is deemed an expert or is otherwise in a position that is respected by others, then people are influenced to do as that person does. How might you expose your “customers” to other people who are respected in the community and have “bought” your ideas?

 

The fifth principle is Consistency: the notion that a person will accept change if they are led to take a small step that will lead to a big change. What can you suggest to your “customers” that will permit them to take a small step that will be consistent with their current state, and yet move them to a big change?

 

The sixth principle is Liking: the notion of locating and raising similarities between you and your “customer” or providing your “customer” with duly earned—not false or phony—praise and compliments. Your “customers” will only “buy” ideas from people they know, Like, and trust.

 

The seventh principle is Consensus: the notion that people want to follow people who are like them and do what they do. What might you use to demonstrate to your “customer” that she or he is in good company when they agree to “buy” your positive, life-affirming ideas? 

Four Fears You Must Master

 The four fears that you must master to get to the personal expansion you desire for your life are: 1) being alone; 2) leaving and losing everything; 3 aging; and given the coronavirus, 4) the fear of debilitating disease.

 The fear of being alone is so common in our society that people rush into meaningless and unfulfilling relationships to avoid it. In fact, countless people stay in unrewarding and lifeless relationships just so they won’t experience being alone.

Somewhere deep in the recesses of our brains is this fear of abandonment, of being left alone forever. As with any fear you may experience, the first step is to acknowledge it and seek to discover what in your past caused this fear. Discovering the root cause of this fear is important for gaining the confidence you need to overcome it.

 You cannot get to personal expansion without taking risks—large, life-changing risks. The risks related to moving forward, however, are not as scary or difficult to face and overcome as the risks associated with leaving the comfort zone of your present experience. If you’re not careful, the fear of leaving and losing everything you have will keep you from moving into the future where your success lies. To take any journey, you must leave where you are to get where you’re going.

 Your fear of losing everything you know, understand and with which you’re familiar rears its ugly head whenever you’re required to move away from your past to embrace your future. Countless people let this fear of losing everything inhibit them from risking the loss of their current life to gain the benefit of a better, more fulfilling life. Success cannot be achieved without taking significant personal risks—not once, but over and over again.

 Fear of aging is not something that crosses the minds of young people: they presume that they will be young forever. But for people over the age of 35, there just may be some momentary, fleeting thoughts about what life will be like when they’re older.

 Modern medicine has actually heightened the fear of aging for many people. Because medical science has found ways to treat chronic illness and prolong life, many people are worried about outliving their resources. So the thought of aging brings with it the fear of ending up in poverty, regardless of the financial success that may have been part of life when they were younger. You must decide not to worry or fret about what might happen to you when you’re 95. You must believe that you will never get old until you decide to be old—which may be when you’re 137!

 Given the coronavirus pandemic, the fear of contracting or inheriting a debilitating sickness is more on the minds of aging people and younger persons who are aware of their family medical history than on people in the population generally. This fear can limit people’s choices for themselves today because they feel tethered to inevitable timelines in which they see themselves crippled physically, mentally, and/or emotionally tomorrow. Consequently, they make what they believe to be “safe” choices—not the choices they would even consider for themselves if the fear of a debilitating sickness were not hanging over their heads.

 Like every other fear that stands in the way of your personal expansion, this fear must be faced squarely and conquered. You must decide and focus your thoughts on the fact of your long-term health and well-being. You must live your life believing that nothing can keep you from achieving your destiny. Such an attitude will allow you—in the worst-case scenario—to adjust to whatever happens to you and keep moving forward into the future, undeterred. Your Faith and Iron Will are sufficient to get you where you desire to be in life.

How to Find Your Purpose in Life

 If you don’t know what you want in life, you’re probably confused. If you know what you want, but don’t go after it, you’re probably frustrated. But if you know what you want and are going after it with everything you have, even though you haven’t gotten where you want to be, you probably feel fulfilled just because you’re on the journey.

One way to discover your purpose is to imagine that you have $3 billion dollars in the bank and you owe no money to anyone and have no responsibility to anyone. If that were your situation, what would you want to accomplish in life?

If you don’t know what you really want in life, the most important question you can ask yourself is, “What really excites me so much that I can see myself getting out of bed every morning and doing that thing?” If what you’re doing now doesn’t make you feel like that, it’s time to find that thing that God created you to be and do.

You’ll find your purpose when you have a clear vision of what you want to do; you’ve figured out how your gifts and talents will help you do what you want to do; know what motivates you, what your values are, what’s important to you, and that your motive for doing your thing is good.

You must obey four universal laws: the Laws of Awareness, Action, Accountability, and Attraction. To do what you want, you must be aware that you can do it; you must take specific and decisive action; you must be accountable to some human being who can be honest with you and challenge you to stay on course. Finally, your thoughts, speech, and actions must be aligned with what you want to do so that what you need to do is attracted to you.

Once you’ve taken these steps, you must practice being committed, consistent, creative, purposeful, reflective, and grateful.

Every highly successful person has at least one coach or mentor in their life. A reputable and highly-trained mentor or coach will require that you have a teachable spirit. If you’re hard-headed and already think you know everything, neither I nor any coach or mentor I know would waste time working with you. Then you must be prepared at each session; you must ask questions, show that you’re learning, and be accountable.

Mentoring and coaching are quite different fields. In the mentoring relationship, you become accountable to someone who is doing or has done what you want to do, and the relationship is cyclical in nature. In the coaching relationship, you are the captain. The role of the coach is to raise your awareness, based on the truth that every answer to every question you have is within yourself. The coach helps you become aware of the faculties and abilities within yourself that you didn’t believe were there and to help you do things you didn’t believe you could do. Take the second step now! Contact me and discover how I can help you grow as your coach.

Exhibit Patience and Self Control

 Exhibit patience and self-control. It is urgent that you develop and nurture this principle because there are countless frustrations that act as landmines on your road to success. To exhibit patience and self-control is to deactivate these landmines and allow you to continue unharmed by your own words and behaviors in times of stress.

Your patience is extremely necessary when you’re dealing with people who either do not see the same goal or direction that you see or who see it and make serious efforts to derail the process of moving forward.  

Self-control keeps you from blurting out negative statements that will only make matters worse by closing off any opportunity for negotiation. What you will learn is that many people who seem self-confident, poised and in control are actually frightened and threatened by any change to their life’s routine. So, the thought of change—even for the better—brings out words and behaviors from them that would frustrate anyone who is not afraid or threatened by change.

Take the opportunity to address people’s core concerns. You do this in a non-threatening, empathetic manner when you exhibit patience and self-control. Many times, the resistance that people give to new ideas or pathways has more to do with their concerns about the impact on them than it does the merit, usefulness, or even necessity of the change. In most cases, your ability to exhibit patience and self-control tends to calm people down and provide them the space to slowly open up so that their fears can be alleviated in a way that affirms their dignity and personhood.

Your motivation to exhibit patience and self-control is that you need people to help you achieve entrepreneurial success. When you exhibit patience and self-control and invest the necessary time in building the relationships with people that are required, you are investing in yourself and your own future success.

What Will You Give for What You Want?

 When you decide to go into business for yourself, you decide that you want to actively control how much money you earn. Once you’ve made that decision, you must decide what you are willing to give in exchange for your desire to be your own boss.

There are only two commodities that you have to offer people: goods and services. In either case, you must give something to receive the money you intend to earn. It should not surprise you that many people in business give the least of themselves to gain the most for themselves.

But the secret to success and its companion—wealth—is not giving the least, but giving the most. So, just what does giving the most mean? It means giving everything you have to the business you choose, regardless of the compensation you receive for your work.

This idea is a problem for business people who are not doing well in their chosen field, but it explains what separates the barely surviving from the abundantly thriving business person. The person who gives little only gets little in return, while the one who gives much receives much in return.

It is the Law of Reciprocity—what you give comes back to you in the same measure that you gave it except for one big thing. When you give the least to be compensated for the most, then you receive much less than you gave.

On the other hand, when you give more than what you expect to be compensated for, you receive back much more that is pressed down, shaken together, and running over in abundance.

As you think about the goods and/or services that you will be offering people in the business you choose to engage in, remember that you must give the best of yourself to that business to succeed, grow, and prosper.

The days of the mom-and-pop proprietary business are gone. Today any business you engage in must be pre-programmed to grow larger, develop people who can run it successfully, and provide you the opportunity to hand it off or sell it later at a significant profit. This means that you should choose the business you intend to own wisely, considering the future of its related industry and the potential growth possibilities it offers.

You should also consider what that business brings to the table to make people’s lives better. One of the greatest feelings you can have as a successful business person is to know that while you are making profits, the people you are serving through your business are benefitting from the goods or services that you are providing.

Regrouping and Relying: Fourth and Fifth of 7 Spiritual Pillars

 The secret to changing your mindset from accepting the way things are on other people’s terms, to taking full responsibility for your own life on your own terms, requires that you build 7 Spiritual Pillars, the fourth and fifth being the Regrouping Pillar and the Relying Pillar.

You build your Regrouping Pillar by being willing to change direction when circumstances demand it, even if you are close to the destination you started toward. Your Regrouping Pillar can only be built by paying attention to your gut instincts—your intuition—that alerts you to your need to make a particular change in plans immediately.

Your ability to shift gears, regroup, and move in a new direction is a gift from God that not only allows you to be flexible enough to change your plans when needed but also allows you to get up and keep going when life knocks you down. The Regrouping Pillar that you build is especially necessary when you suffer from accidents, illnesses, financial losses, or the death of a loved one.

But, here’s the caveat: you cannot build your Regrouping Pillar if you have not already built your Renewing Pillar. When you build your Regrouping Pillar, you are acting in faith and demonstrating in practical and observable ways that you constantly renew your mind and daily trust God no matter what you face in life.

The fifth of the 7 Spiritual Pillars is the Relying Pillar. You build your Relying Pillar by persevering under trials and hardships, knowing that you can rely on God to empower you to get through anything.

This does not mean that whenever you are opposed, you will come out on top, but rather, that whatever happens to you, you will have the power to come through it. It is through your worst experiences that you learn to stop depending solely on your own strength, your own abilities, and your own instincts, and to fully rely on God.

So, you must build your Relying Pillar so that when times get tough and you can see no way out of the predicaments that come to you, you will rely on the grace and mercy of God to empower you to stick it out until God discloses to your mind the path that is the way out for you.

The Renewing Pillar: Third of 7 Spiritual Pillars

 The secret to changing your mindset from accepting the way things are on other people’s terms, to taking full responsibility for your own life on your terms, requires that you build 7 Spiritual Pillars, the third being the Renewing Pillar.

You build your personal Renewing Pillar by understanding that life moves and you must move with it. Whatever you thought yesterday may not be relevant, useful, or otherwise appropriate for the issues that confront you today. You must constantly have a fresh, new mindset that refuses to think in stiff, staid, and stupid mind-atrophying stereotypes. Rather, you are to be renewing your mind continually—opening it up to new ideas, new truths that God wants to impart to you, truths and ways of thinking, being, and doing that only a daily, committed, and vibrant walk with God can afford you.

You have to train your mind to think only of the good, the positive, the true, the beautiful, and the beneficial and refuse to think of the negatives that, like weeds, attempt to surround, subdue, and strangle your positive thought life.

You must add to your Bible study the reading of great literature that reflects your historic struggle to be free, as well as the cultural creations that your people produced as a result of their life struggles.

In other words, you must fill your free mind time with positive learning and thought material that will help you grow in a well-rounded way so that you can relate to your people by being informed about their positive interests. How better can you make disciples—recruit and train people for Jesus’ counter-hegemonic struggle to bring the kingdom of God to this earth—than by engaging your sisters and brothers in conversation about the issues, concerns, good ideas, and mutual areas of interest that matter to them and you.

The Renewing Pillar is the most difficult of the 7 Spiritual Pillars because it requires constant struggle within your own mind to refuse to think about the negative thoughts that come to you. Your mind is constantly being assaulted by all kinds of thoughts—most of which are negative or otherwise of no use in moving you forward toward the goals you have set for yourself. Seek and accept the Holy Spirit’s help to win the battles raging in your mind.

The Remembering Pillar: Second of 7 Spiritual Pillars

 Don’t be conformed to the patterns of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your minds so that you can figure out what God’s will is—what is good and pleasing and mature.

Romans 12:2 CEB

The secret to changing your mindset from accepting the way things are on other people’s terms, to taking full responsibility for your own life on your own terms, requires that you build 7 Spiritual Pillars, the second being the Remembering Pillar.

You build your Remembering Pillar by continuously calling to mind what God has done for you in the past. It is this kind of remembering that moves you to be thankful to God and express your gratitude to Him for how He has brought you from where you began with Him at birth to where you are now.

You should remember both the bad times and the good times with God. You should remember the bad times because if you remember well, you will recall that it was God who brought you through every single bad time you have ever had. And you should remember the good times because it was God who blessed you with every really good time you have ever had.

It is through building your Remembering Pillar that you are comforted when all hell seems to have broken loose in your life, and it is this Remembering Pillar that encourages you not to quit, but to keep on going forward. Your Remembering Pillar teaches you that everything that you go through—no matter how burdensome or painful—will work out for your ultimate benefit.

The easiest way to build your Remembering Pillar is to start keeping a journal from day to day. Without a written record of what you have been through, it is easier for the enemy of your soul to lie to you and tell you that following the Golden Rule Way has not been beneficial to you. But when you can open your journal and read your own personal bible of the situations you were in and how God brought you out, you are empowered to encourage yourself in bad times and enjoy reliving good times.

The Relating Pillar: First of 7 Spiritual Pillars

 And do not be conformed to this world [any longer with its superficial values and customs], but be transformed and progressively changed [as you mature spiritually] by the renewing of your mind focusing on godly values and ethical attitudes], so that you may prove [for yourselves] what the will of God is, that which is good and acceptable and perfect [in His plan and purpose for you].

Romans 12:2 AMP

The secret to changing your mindset from quiescent (accepting the way things are on other people's terms) to self-liberative (taking full responsibility for your own life and growth) requires that you erect 7 Spiritual Pillars, the first of which is the Relating Pillar.

The Relating Pillar is always three-dimensional: it includes how you relate to God, yourself and others. You build your Relating Pillar toward God by focusing on obeying the Golden Rule Way—treat other people the way a mentally healthy and psychologically whole you would want to be treated.

As you practice treating people with respect, listening to them, seeking to understand them from their point of view, and accepting them as they are—despite their differences from you, in thought, word and deed—you will have an opportunity to consider how God relates with and to you.

If you are aware and take that opportunity, you will begin to think of how good God is and has been to you, despite your differences from God in thought, word and deed. You may be led to think about how God has brought you out of the trouble into which you have behaved yourself, and how gently and lovingly God hangs in there with you in spite of your rarely getting everything right.

Your contemplation of God, as you focus on living out the Golden Rule Way, may lead you to thank Him for His kindness and mercy toward you. If you persist in thanking God habitually, you will begin to feel an emotional attachment to God. That feeling of attachment will slowly turn to the feeling of love. As that love of God grows in you, you will begin to want to please God, not out of your duty to relate to people according to the Golden Rule Way, but because you simply want to please God.

You build your Relating Pillar toward yourself by focusing on the fact that God loves you, and if God, who is greater than you, thinks enough of you to love you, then you must think enough of yourself to love you. In the same way that you relate to God based on the deal He has cut with you—the Golden Rule Way requirement—you must cut a deal with yourself. You must treat yourself with respect, listen to yourself, and seek to understand and accept who you are and why you are the way you are.

In building the third dimension of your Relating Pillar with other people, you must make sure that the same terms and conditions—the Golden Rule Way requirement—apply. You have been chosen by God to go in the Golden Rule Way, so your personal relating to other people must model how you expect them to relate to others in the same Golden Rule Way as well. You must ask God for wisdom to determine with whom you will share your life as a friend, lover and close associate. As you are making this determination, rely on Jesus’ words of wisdom: “Many are called, but few are chosen.”

The Revolutionary Content of Jesus' Resurrection

 But Christ has indeed been raised from the dead, the first fruits of those who have fallen asleep. For since death came through a man, the resurrection of the dead comes also through a man. For as in Adam all die, so in Christ, all will be made alive. 1 Corinthians 15: 20-22 NIV

True revolutionaries in the Jesus Movement willingly admit that Jesus died in their place to completely dispense with the issue of their ever having to be held personally liable to be condemned or adjudged guilty by God for any negative being or doing acts or omissions in their past, present, or future.

However, it was God’s raising Jesus from the dead that gave life, purpose, and direction to those elite revolutionaries who willingly lay down their lives for the poor and oppressed by engaging in the counter-hegemonic struggle for the liberation of the oppressed and social/economic justice for the poor.

God was in the man Jesus when he came to rescue humankind from not only physical and spiritual death, but also social, economic, political, philosophical, psychological, and theological death—all that humans have produced in rebellion against God. That God chose to act through a human being whom He raised from the dead is a sign and signal to the Jesus Movement revolutionary that God will raise her/him up from death in all its earthly manifestations.

Because Jesus conquered death, so will the revolutionary who follows Jesus’ revolutionary path—a path that calls for disruption of the status quo, subversion of the Eurocentric world system, and merciless assault on the bastions of false Eurocentric-oriented Christian religion.

God’s raising Jesus from the dead also announces the hope that the last, least, and lost can be raised from their spiritual, social, and economic death and given new life that manifests itself in their active engagement in counter-hegemonic revolutionary struggle.

Because God demonstrated his ultimate power in raising a very dead Jesus to life—a life that will never die again—the Jesus Movement revolutionary believes that God will use that same mighty power to raise up the millions of people of color who are dead in trespasses and sins and shrouded in the grave clothes of the myth of white supremacy.

On Embracing the Contradiction

 For God took the sinless Christ and poured into him our sins. Then, in exchange, he poured God’s goodness into us!

2 Corinthians 5:21 TLB

African Americans have always lived a life of duality in the United States. W.E.B. Du Bois first articulated our “double consciousness” in his 1903 book, The Souls of Black Folk: “It is a peculiar sensation, this double-consciousness, this sense of always looking at one’s self through the eyes of others, of measuring one’s soul by the tape of a world that looks on in amused contempt and pity. One ever feels his two-ness, an American, a Negro; two souls, two thoughts, two unreconciled strivings; two warring ideals in one dark body, whose dogged strength alone keeps it from being torn asunder.”

In the 21^st century, I have reformulated and further developed Du Bois’ concept of “double consciousness” into the Quiescent/Self-Liberative Contradiction.

The quiescent/self-liberative contradiction in African Americans is a form of social/psychological schizophrenia that manifests itself in how we choose to self-actualize. This contradiction forces us to wrestle with choosing between accommodating the racist world system (quiescent behavior) and revolting against the world system to overthrow it (self-liberative behavior.) For us, there is no middle option.

All too often in the past, the calming, accommodationist voice of the Black Church has been enlisted by Eurocentric racists to control the thinking and behavior of the African American masses so that we would not develop our ability through Jesus to be transformed from accommodating, non-critical, incoherent “common sense” people to Afrocentrist-conscious “organic intellectuals” who are willing and able to engage in effective social change struggle.

Jesus understands the quiescent/self-liberative contradiction first-hand because of his two-ness as both God and man. As man, Jesus died in our place so that we could be in right standing with God, the Father. As God, the Son, Jesus chose to become the very embodiment of sin so that we might become the very embodiment of righteousness before God. In sum, Jesus became his opposite (sin) so that we could become our opposite (righteousness). 

It is our embracing the contradiction of Jesus’ two-ness that radicalizes our thinking, speaking, and behaving, provides us with critical understanding, and midwifes our self-transformation into Jesus Movement revolutionaries who are committed to bringing the kingdom of God to this earth, in our time, on our watch--by any means necessary.

A Meditation on Violence

 Every physical and mental motion or action dislodges, dislocates, and destroys the inertia that it must overcome to act. Inertia is an enemy that only action can destroy. Motion and action are always violent because only violence is capable of moving or acting against the negative force of inertia in the world. To act is to engage in violence to overcome inertia. To refuse to act is to allow the violence of inertia to overcome the self. Therefore, the issue is never whether one likes, dislikes, chooses, or declines to choose violence, but rather the further investigation of the nature of violence itself.

The violence of childbirth cannot be equated with the violence of cutting off someone’s head. Neither can the violence of building a house for a homeless family be equated with the violence of bombing a village to extract the minerals found therein. In the same manner, the violence of freeing oneself from a kidnapper cannot be equated with the violence of enslaving millions of people for their sale to the highest bidder. Nor is the violence of laying one’s life down for another comparable to taking the lives of innocents to demonstrate one’s power to do so. Thus, the false issue of violence versus “non-violence” must give way to the real issue: positive violence versus negative violence.

Positive violence is that powerful word or act that aims at the liberation of enslaved peoples, while negative violence is that powerful word or act that focuses on keeping enslaved peoples enslaved.

The perfect example of negative violence is hate—hate that selfishly takes, enslaves, kills, destroys, and steals from those who believe themselves to be powerless and vulnerable.

The perfect example of positive violence is love—love that gives itself unselfishly to free the last, least, and lost people enslaved by poverty, economic exploitation, and discrimination.

The motive, purpose, use and intent of violence determine whether it will be classified as positive or negative. Every thought, act, or behavior that is motivated by hate is negative violence. Contrariwise, every thought, act, or behavior that is motivated by love is positive violence.

The Righteous Struggle

 For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places.

Ephesians 6:12 KJV

The counter-hegemonic struggle that revolutionary followers of Jesus are engaged in is not a crass struggle for power over and against people, but always a principled struggle against evil, corrupt political, social, and economic systems, demonic power structures, and the bastions of a Eurocentric nationalist religion that support and encourage global exploitation of the many so that untold riches accrue only to the few.

For revolutionary followers of Jesus, one major battleground for counter-hegemonic struggle is located in the Eurocentric Nationalist church itself and its support of racist policies, politics, and politicians, in general, along with its insistence on portraying Jesus as a European who is the idol set up to be worshiped, in particular. The message that God is European (white) drummed into the heads of Africans and other people of color—as well as Europeans who already have an inordinate sense of entitlement and racial privilege—has no place in any 21st-century body of people who claim to confess Jesus as Lord.

The second major battleground is in the Eurocentric-oriented Neo-Colonialist Churches of color and their refusal to call Eurocentric churches out for their denial of the gospel of Jesus, and their own complicity in the oppression of people of color, in general, along with their refusal to proclaim the revolutionary gospel of Jesus for liberation of the oppressed and economic justice for the poor, in particular.

Only such a revolutionary message, made flesh by radical action, true to the biblical mandate, has the power to set the masses of people of color, poor white people, disenfranchised returning citizens, and abandoned U.S. veterans free from the grip of poverty and alienation that destroys them.

The most relevant radical action that we can take now, is to support the Poor People’s Campaign Moral March on Washington, scheduled for Saturday, June 20, 2020. We have an opportunity to model what the kingdom of God looks like in very concrete terms, as we walk together, proclaiming every person’s right to enjoy the basic necessities of life: healthy food, state-of-the-art healthcare, decent, affordable housing, and livable wage employment.

My Ode to Freedom

 It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery. Galatians 5:1 NIV

As an African/Edenic person living in a Eurocentric-oriented racist society, I understand that Jesus is the only Revolutionary I can follow because He came to earth to set me, and people of all hues who are similarly situated, completely free from every vestige of slavery and its attendant indicia of bondage. The freedom that Jesus offers us is three-dimensional.

First, it is physical in that it affects how we function in the world. Second, it is philosophical in that it affects our understanding of the world and how we process ideas that counter reactionary and backward-looking Eurocentric assumptions that have previously usurped our independent thought processes. Third, it is psychological in that it affects the way we think about ourselves, others, and God.

True freedom, at its most fundamental level, is that state of being in which a person, without being enslaved, dominated, or otherwise held under constraint, restraint, duress, or undue influence, can of her or his own volition make decisions, plan courses of action consistent with those decisions, have unlimited access to and control over resources, and exercise the necessary power to concretely actualize those decisions.

Given this definition of freedom, it is manifestly clear that the last, least, and lost of African/Edenic and similarly situated people in America have never experienced true freedom. Despite this, Jesus is offering all of us an unfettered freedom that is firmly rooted in the truth and in reality.

The truth is that, without a revolutionary relationship with and understanding of Jesus, we are slaves in a world-system matrix inimical to our best interests, opposed to our limitless capacity for personal human growth and development, and bent on our total destruction.

The reality is that the only road to freedom is our connecting with Jesus and submitting ourselves to his radical leadership so that we can effectively engage in counter-hegemonic (revolutionary) struggle to develop our critical understanding—our ability to be transformed from non-critical, incoherent “common sense” people (objects) to kingdom-oriented “organic intellectuals” (subjects) who are willing and able to provide principled revolutionary leadership for establishing the kingdom of God on this earth.

Why Growing Yourself Matters

 In the very first chapter of his classic book, The 15 Invaluable Laws of Growth, John Maxwell stresses the point that personal growth is not natural, nor is it automatic—in fact, personal growth does not happen unless a person becomes intentional about desiring to grow and then makes and follows a plan to grow.

He gives eight specific reasons why people avoid being intentional about growing themselves. The first reason is that they assume that they will automatically grow mentally and spiritually inside as they have grown naturally and physically outside. The second reason is that they don’t know how to grow. The third is that they don’t think that now is the right time to grow. The fourth is that they don’t want to make the mistakes that are part and parcel of growing. The fifth reason is that they want to find the best—the perfect—way to grow. The sixth is they don’t feel like growing. The seventh is that they believe that other people are better than they are, and the eighth reason is that they discover that it’s harder to grow than they realize.

If you use any of these reasons or others I haven’t mentioned, that keep you from being intentional about your own growth, then you have built yourself a prison from which you will never escape—you will forever keep yourself from all that God has created you to be, do and have in this life. When you allow any reason to control you, you can never move beyond being stuck where you are, doing what you do now, and having only what you have now—or even less than you have now. Because if you’re not expanding, you’re setting yourself up for contracting.

Being intentional matters because without it you will stay stuck, dooming yourself to a life of mediocrity without any hope for living the life you were created to live.

Here are some serious questions that you should ask yourself right now: Where do you want to go in life? What direction do you want to go in? What’s the farthest you can imagine going? How long will it take? If you haven’t spent time with yourself to wrestle with these questions before, I can guarantee you that the experience will give you a headache, but it will be the best headache you ever had!

This is because asking yourself these questions will help you raise your sights on living a more fulfilled and satisfied life on the one hand while raising to the surface the five fears you must face and overcome on the other. These fears include fear of failure; fear of trading security for the unknown; fear of being overextended financially; fear of what people you know will think and say to you about what you’re doing; and fear of rejection by the people you value most—your friends and family.

You alone must decide which emotion is stronger: your desire to change, grow, and reach your potential, or your fears that are there to keep you stuck and forever afraid to move forward and become your highest and best self.

On My Mind and In My Thinking

 “My mind is a center of Divine operation. The Divine operation is always for expansion and fuller expression, and this means the production of something beyond what has gone before; something entirely new, not included in past experience, though proceeding out of it by an orderly sequence of growth. Therefore, since the Divine cannot change its inherent nature, it must operate in the same manner in me; Consequently, in my own special world, in which I am the center, it must move forward to produce new conditions, always in advance of any that have gone before.” 

Thomas Troward

Troward begins by making a spectacular announcement: “My mind is a center of Divine operation.” He speaks for himself and for me here. (You alone must decide whether he speaks for you.) My mind is a center—a deliberately chosen central place—where God has actively chosen to live and operate in me—to be, do, and perform His Divine purposes through me. Troward doesn’t suggest that God’s presence in my mind is there because I asked for it, or because I went through some elaborate set of tests, trials, and examinations to make me worthy of God’s activity there. He states it as an unquestioned fact, inerrant, sure, and as absolute as Eternal Law. I AM worthy because I AM created in the image and likeness of I AM that I AM. My worthiness preceded my birth on this planet. It is an eternally closed issue.

Building on this unalterable truth, Troward goes on to describe the Divine operation as always seeking expansion and fuller expression. Thus, just as scientists have discovered that the universe is constantly expanding, so also the Divine operation or working within and through me is expanding and seeking further expression in me and through me. This expression is manifested in my desire to be, do, and have more—that nagging sense of restlessness I feel that accompanies my settling for the status quo of mediocre sameness and its attendant ennui. Spirit is forever expanding, enlarging, and evolving into what is new, different, and distinct from what was and what currently is, although it has grown from what was and superseded what is.

In the same way that Spirit works in an ever-expanding universe, it works in me by the Law of the Spirit of Life—Eternal Life; life ever more and more abundant ad infinitum. Consequently, Spirit must move in me to make me grow, expand, increase, and manifest a better me, a fuller me, a more productive, loving me. Thus, if Spirit is in me, I cannot remain the old me: I must become a new creation, an enlarged creation at every level of my being. This means that I reflect the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ—i.e., I look more like Jesus and act more like Him. I think like God thinks because I have the mind of Christ who has the mind of God. I love like He loves because I AM one with the Father and the Son. My compassion towards people is His compassion towards people. I AM that I AM because I AM that I AM has made me thus.

Because I AM that I AM, I AM creating new external conditions that manifest themselves through the working of God’s Divine operation within me. These conditions are manifested first in Spirit and then are transmuted into material forms—forms that are different from the old, past forms; forms that are new creations from new ideas, new thoughts, new creative musings that are the operating, working, and constructing principles of God at the very center of my being.

All that I AM is in my mind (heart, Spirit). And what is my responsibility in all this? I must work the works of God (operate God’s operations), think God’s thoughts after Him, and manifest the material conditions of God's thoughts while I AM conscious and aware that today is still today. The night is coming when I will no longer be in this space, on this plane to function as the Son of God in the center of my mind. I must show forth the praises of Him who has brought me out of darkness into His marvelous light, and I must be who I AM so that others are drawn to the light of Christ within me. Only then will I be able to make disciples—disciplined ones—who will maximize their development and highest and best use of themselves, the resources they receive, and the resources they create for themselves and others. In short, I AM to be an agent of Transformation to manifest God’s creative and redemptive purposes on this earth.

Who are YOU, and what is YOUR purpose?