The reason I can guarantee it, is that we are all subject to two other tendencies:

• We only do what we think is possible to do. The possibility of some actions is simply so out of reach of our imagination, that we will not even consider it. Before laser assisted eye surgery to correct short-sightedness and other refractive eye defects, I am sure that many thought they would have to wear glasses or contact lenses for the rest of their lives.
• We only truly believe it is possible to do what we have sucessfully done before. Those who call themselves risk-takers are those who take a leap of faith and try something new in spite of this tendency. It is important though, to remember that until one acutally succeeds, it will not seem nearly as real in your mind as afterwards.

These two tendencies combined cause us to repeat using the same strategies we have used in the past, and to never even consider that they would need to be improved.
We need to counter these tendencies if we are to improve our lives. The best way to counter them, is to educate yourself about what it possible for others, and then simply “turn off” thinking and take massive action towards achieving the same for yourself.

When you do this, you will probably find that it does not work out for you at first. It is new to you and you will make mistakes, but if you struggle through the hardships at some point it becomes much easier and one day you have totally forgotten that the activity was once thought of as impossible for you.

So don’t get discouraged, this is a struggle that affects all of us, even those with a lot of succes will have a doubting voice within:

If you hear a voice within you say “you cannot paint,” then by all means paint, and that voice will be silenced. - Vincent Van Gogh

You probably have a similar voice inside your head - do not let it rule your life, or you will end up old and bitter, wondering what might have been (for an illustration see Morgenthaler). I do not want that to happen to you, and I am pretty sure that I have your support in this matter

Well, that is actually what the proponents of the Law of Attraction will tell you. I just happen to think that it is a huge scam.

I am a big believer in the principle that if something false can be allowed to spread, it is because there is some truth to it, people are not stupid. So what is it that is true about the Law of Attraction even though it is actually a scam?

First of all most proponents will tell you that it is not exactly that simple, and that is true of course. For the law of attraction to work, it must feel right and you should be careful not to let negative thoughts reverse the “process”.  In other words the law of attraction includes the (true) idea that positive thinking will help you in your quest for personal development.

You will also be told that you need to focus intensely and continously on whatever you want to manifest. If what you want to achieve is on a personal level, this seems an awful lot like another well known personal development technique, affirmations.  I am not a big fan of affirmations but I acknowledge that they have the (true) potential to help with lack of self esteem and other internal problems. Focusing on what it is you want is also the basis of two other valid personal development methods, goal setting and visualizations.

In order to leach some credibility from scientific studies, many proponents of the law of attraction will say that your thoughts “activate a vibration within you” and that we are all “Vibrational Beings”. Supposedly the goal is to be “in tune” with the Universe and then let your thoughts affect the world around you by sending out the right vibrations. It is true that all atoms vibrate, this is called heat. It is also true that heat can be transfered (or transmitted if you like) as you will remember from putting you hand on a hot object, your hand will become warmer. It is, however, entirely unfounded to propose that your thoughts can control these vibrations(heat) and that it will have any consequence for your future succes.

So what is the law of attraction? It is parts from positive thinking, affirmations, visualizations and goal setting with a new spin on it. This also explains why you will hear examples of people having (some) success with it. So why do I call it a scam? I do it because the traditional personal development methods are designed to help improve YOU, so that YOU will take action and YOU will improve your life - in this case the Law of Attraction proposes something very alluring instead: that you do not need to do anything, just send out the right vibrations (thoughts) and the Universe will take care of this for you. If you have always dreamt of owning a Lamborghini, just focus your thoughts intensely on it and someday it will be given to you. If you have always wanted to win the figure skating gold medal at the Winter Olympics, forget about training - just focus your thoughts intensely on it!

Hopefully it is clear from these last two examples how preposterous the Law of Attraction really is. Hopefully you will not get persuaded by their pseudo-scientific mumbo jumbo. Hopefully you will acknowledge that if you want to improve your life, you will actually have to work for it.

What I have been focusing on is starting my own business. This sounds like a risky endeavour to most, but actually I am hedging my bet by doing it part time with the blessing of my employer. I am fortunate to have an employer that said “no problem” when I asked whether it was ok to start my own business on the side - but I think that most employers will be willing to listen as long as your business is not in direct competition and you still will be able to put in the same working hours as you used to. So if you have a dream of starting your own business, do not take it for granted that you will need to resign from your job. If you are doing a good job for your employer, most employers will want to keep you on board, rather than force you to quit in order to pursue your dream.

Starting your own business is an intense education in personal development. Unless you are a veteran entrepreneur, you are effectively jumping into deep water hoping that you will learn to swim before going under. Almost nothing that you will learn as an employee will help you when starting a business. It is a whole different mindset that you will need to acquire. For me, it is the second time that I am starting my own business and that is probably why it feels more like activating a dormant mindset than acquiring it. Do not think that this mindset is something that you need to be born with, or something that can be learned in school - it is a mindset available to everybody with an open mind and a willingness to “learn by doing”.

It is no coincidence that many successful entrepreneurs have a history of failed businesses behind them, they needed those “failures” (think of them as educations) to learn the proper mindset. When I started my first business I learned so much that I had to close the business instead of continuing, as I knew that I needed time to contemplate all that I learned. Since closing that first business, I have spent most of my efforts educating myself in the areas that I found severely lacking in my education at the time. This time I hope that my mindset is close enough that my business will prosper, even in the face of problems. I know that I am much better prepared this time, and this gives me the confidence to redouble my efforts in order to make it work.

The 10th of October 2006 my business was born. I wanted a name for it that was different and at the same time symbolized my intent of delivering real value to people. You know that warm and fuzzy feeling you get when everything goes your way? That is the feeling I want my customers to feel when dealing with my business. I settled on “The Cuddly Bear Group” or just “Cuddly Bear” for short. When I mention it, most find it really strange - but really, a name such as “Google” is just as strange until you get used to it.

The first sign of my business having been born is the website (in danish) www.cuddlybear.dk, where I advertise my consulting services concerning internet technologies. My ambitiousness makes me envision much more than just a consulting business though, so watch this blog for more announcements of my plans materializing!

What is RSS

If you are not familiar with RSS-feeds, you can read an introduction here. It is simply a standardized way of receiving a notice whenever I post a new article. When you start to subscribe to different feeds you might feel a bit overwhelmed at first, this is a natural response to the huge amount of content that is available through feeds. What you will probably notice though, is that after a while you stop thinking that you have to read it all and simply scan the headlines for what is really interesting to you.

How to use RSS

In the subscribe section you will find an easily recognizeable “XML” button that links to the RSS-feed of my blog. You can use that for traditional application-based RSS readers. If you prefer one of the many online feed services, I have added several buttons that make it much easier to subscribe to my articles through those services.

Using email

Finally I have also included the possibility of using the FeedBlitz service to get an email whenever a new article is up. If you use email a lot you might find it easier to manage if you get the new articles in the mail. Or if you think all this RSS-stuff is a bit annoying or overly complex, this is also the option for you.

Quick and easy

With all these options to choose from, it is quick and easy to subscribe to my articles. I try to do everything I can to make things easier for you, as it simply makes more sense that I spend 10 minutes once instead of every new subscriber spending 10 minutes each. Now you can subscribe by the click of a button and it does not get much easier than that

Give your wealth away

Recently the world’s second richest man, Warren Buffet, decided he would give away 85% of his massive wealth (44 billion US dollars). This is a straight forward example of how others can benefit from your wealth - you can give it to them. In Buffet’s case it is coincidentally also a nice way to sell his stocks without sending a horrible signal to the stock market about his trust in Berkshire Hathaway. By giving away your wealth you will also enjoy the satisfaction of contribution and following Anthony Robbins’ idea of the 6 human needs (of which contribution is one) - contribution is essential in order to feel satisfaction in a deep and profound way.

Provide security for those you love

With massive wealth come benefits from the sheer size of your wealth. If you have set up a secure and diverse portfolio of investments that provides your income, you can be sure that if the worst thing should happen (that you die), your family will still be provided for - and you do not even need a life insurance! Financial security will also be a massive psychological benefit for both you and your loved ones - when fear of financial trouble is simply not an issue, it will become easier to relax and enjoy the other challenges of life, challenges that are probably a lot more rewarding anyway. This gift of financial security, even in the worst circumstances, is one you can give by becoming wealthy.

Spread happiness

Although you are in no way guaranteed to become happy by becoming wealthy, I think it is safe to say that money can be very useful for living your dream life and this in turn will lead to a happier life. Being happy and passionate about life is infectious and sharing your happiness with others is the natural thing to do. This is actually just another form of contribution and I think Mother Theresa puts it well:

Every time you smile at someone, it is an action of love, a gift to that person, a beautiful thing.

Spend your time wisely

Being wealthy also frees up time for you that can be used on altruistic activities. When you no longer need to work 9-5 just to keep yourself and your family financially afloat, doing activities for the common good instead of for money suddenly becomes a viable option. You can focus your intellect on developing a cure for cancer, you can teach children topics they do not learn in school, you can help old ladies cross the street, you can start a political career with a focus on helping the victims of our evermore hectic and cut-throat society, you can provide free consulting and investment money for aspiring young entrepreneurs. Probably you can come up with even better suggestions for what your activities will be when you become massively wealthy, but that was just a list to get you started

Speak up for what you believe in

When you have worked hard for your wealth, another benefit of being massively wealthy is that people will automatically associate you with wisdom and experience. This means that you will reach a wider audience when you say something and you might even get the media to spread your message. You can use this powerful fact to further the causes you believe in: by donating five-sixths of the 85% to the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Warren Buffet also sends a powerful signal that he consider the foundation a worthy cause. This principle applies to all who are famous and if you become really famous through your wealth, all you have to do is show up at key events to show your support, the media will take care of the rest.

Wealth is not evil

With all these examples of ways to benefit others by becoming wealthy, it is clear that being wealthy can be a noble goal. All statistics show that it is when people are very poor that crime (and acts of violence in particular) is rampant, not when people are wealthy. You decide whether your goal of being wealthy is evil or noble by your reasons for wanting it. Even if your dream of becoming wealthy was at first born from egotistical reasons, you can still decide to make it noble - start to dream of all the worthy causes you can help instead of all the fancy bling bling you will get. For most people I think that is also a more empowering reason to become wealthy and you can still spend your wealth on material goods, just do not make that the sole reason for acquiring wealth. I consider my goal of becoming wealthy a noble one and you should consider yours a noble one too!

One of the stories was about the monkeys there. Now, in order to keep the monkeys from running away but still let them walk around freely they have put the monkeys on an artificial island separated by a bridge. The bridge is made of metal and the monkeys are not able to walk over it as it is electrified in the same way as an electrical fence. The staff started by letting the monkeys find out that the bridge would give an electrical shock and then afterwards they could turn off the electricity. They need to turn off the electricity during the open hours, so that visitors can walk on the bridge without the risk of getting an electrical shock, then during the off hours the electricity is turned on again. As long as the monkeys were scared of the bridge it did not matter that the electricity was not always flowing, they would keep away on the assumption that the bridge would still be electrified. What they forgot to take into account though, is that monkeys are way smarter than you think. The monkeys were smart enough not to assume that what they learned initially was carved in stone. They discovered that the bridge was not always electrified and the way they discovered it was very clever. The little pranksters devised a plan: they would trick some ducks to walk onto the bridge and if the ducks did not react by quacking like crazy and flying away, they knew the bridge was safe. Not a very nice thing to do to the ducks but you have got to give it to them, it was a pretty creative way of finding out, especially for a monkey!

What really got me thinking though, was that the monkeys were testing what they initially thought to be absolutely true: that walking on the bridge would give an electrical shock. It seems to me that it is very rare for people to test their beliefs like that. Quite the opposite in fact: based on 1 try the diet is rejected as useless and a new one is tried instead, based on 1 failed job application the content of the application is thought to be poorly written, based on 1 failed attempt to get a relationship working you conclude that something is wrong with you and your ability to be in a relationship, etc. Evolutionally speaking it is extremely useful to be able to quickly decide on an initial conclusion based on limited information so you can get away from danger quickly, so it is not something that should be thought of as a bad thing. It is, however, a bad thing to forget that due to the limited information it is only an initial conclusion. Later you follow up by investigations to determine whether the original conclusion should be kept or a new one formed from the additional information acquired.

What would happen if you never questioned your existing beliefs? You would get entrenched in them, is what would happen. Slowly but surely each area of your life would get populated by beliefs and since they were not up for discussion, there would be less and less space for new beliefs. You might think that the brain is so mighty that there will always be space for new beliefs - but even if that were true, it would not matter as what limits the space is not the capacity of the brain but the existing beliefs. Your brain needs some consistency in your beliefs, while it is true that you can have beliefs that are inconsistent, you can not have beliefs that are in direct conflict. You can not simultaneously believe that people in general are trustworthy and that people in general are not worthy of your trust. Without space for new beliefs personal development would be nonexistent.

It will probably take a full life of not questioning existing beliefs in order to reach a state where there is absolutely no space for new beliefs. However your mental growth can get stunted way before that. Consider a belief like “People are not worthy of my trust”, how do you think a belief like that will influence your relationships? Your career? Your ability to apply personal development techniques you get from books, articles and friends? Without ever trusting the noble intentions of others you will constantly question their words instead of your beliefs - and since your brain will come up with an answer to whatever you ask it, you can always find a way to discredit advice you do not like (and what you like is determined by your beliefs).

Do not fall for this trap, do not let your brain get entrenched in old beliefs that does not serve your goals and ambitions. Revisit your beliefs occasionally and test them rigorously to see whether they still serve their purpose. You will probably find that a lot of them are still very valuable to you and your development so it can be very empowering to test your beliefs, you discover how well your brain works. It is the few beliefs that fails when tested that are holding back your personal development though, and discovering those will guide you towards the areas of your life that needs some work. Do not get frustrated that some areas do not pass scrutiny - get excited! Knowing which areas are problematic is the first step to improving them and improving them is the first step to improving your life!

The first thing I noticed when I came back from the school was how much TV is used for getting news. Even though I never felt like I was missing news about the world, after all we often heard the news on radio, there was quite a contrast when I started to watch TV again. Now you might think that this is a point in favour of watching TV, as we all want to be up to date on what happens in the world, but the trouble is that the extra news in TV was all the news that we do not need in the first place! It was news like what was happening in the popular TV-shows, it was news like a story about the latest celebrity “scandal”, and it was news about the latest results in sports and so on and so on. The difference between the short news-stories we heard in the radio and what you get from watching TV is exactly the news about all the stuff that do not really matter. In other words I learned that you do not need to spend a lot of time on news to keep yourself updated about the world, it only feels that way because you are used to the kind of fluff-filled news you find on TV instead of the concise news you can find in other places (Here in Denmark we are lucky enough to get quality news from the state-financed radio channels). So consider this a productivity tip: you can actually spend very little time on news without loosing track of important changes in society.

Another thing I noticed was the lack of social interaction when you spend more time watching TV. Watching TV is really a rather poor substitute for real interaction with real people. Even though I am sure that your brain feels like it is a kind of social interaction to watch a soap opera or reality show, I am also sure that the extremely passive “fly on the wall” way of interaction is vastly inferior to the real thing with regard to learning life skills and social acuity. Watching TV can be pretty seductive though and when you are used to watching a lot of TV you will not notice how often you will just watch some TV when you could have gotten a much better experience by taking the initiative to meet with friends or spend real quality time with your family. The ease with which we can get our needs at least partly filled by turning on the TV means that you should always try to think of reasons not to watch TV. Otherwise you will probably be tempted to go the easy route when you should have chosen the most rewarding route.

Thirdly I learned that I can easily live without a TV. This might not seem like a big thing to you but I bet that if I threatened to take away all your TV-sets you would probably be a bit concerned about how it would affect your life. I have no such concerns, if I feel that I watch too much TV I just stop watching it. It is like a switch I have that can be either on or off but I have no preference for either state except for what serves me best in my current situation. When I talk to people about living without a TV they get this look on their face like it would be a major decision to do so and often they are not sure they could actually go through with it. Currently I only watch TV when I am at my girlfriends place and never when I am at home in my house. This is very beneficial to me as when I am at home I often have a lot of work to do and it really helps that I do not even have the slightest urge to distract myself by watching TV.

Living without a TV-set is something I would warmly recommend you to try out if you have the possibility. You might need to persuade other users of your TV-set that this is a good thing but if you manage to do so, you have even more of a reason to ditch TV as you can then make it a group effort where watching TV is replaced by doing more meaningful activities together. It is true that some of what is shown on TV is really quality stuff that is educational and rewarding but if you start by experiencing that you can easily live without a TV it becomes much easier to later add in your favourite show without getting seduced into wasting a lot of time watching all the other stuff. The only real disadvantage I have found to living without a TV-set is that you can not always participate with others in their discussions about the latest shows - it is however a small price to pay for all the extra time you will get by not watching TV.

Statistics show that the average American watches more than 4 hours a day of television, this becomes 1460 hours a year or nearly 9 weeks! Just imagine what you could do with all that extra time in your life : you could work on an idea for a business to start, you could spend quality time with your family and friends, you could visit friends or family members you have not seen in a long time, you could go on an intensive training program to lose weight and build muscle so your looks are vastly improved and your self esteem skyrockets, or one of a thousand other worthwhile endeavours that are possible in 9 weeks or less. The choice is yours but I really hope that I have inspired you to at least try what it feels like to no watch any TV, perhaps just for a month or two, you can always extend the period if you get hooked

The structure I will talk about is not the division of the brain into different specialized areas like hearing, seeing and language. Rather the interesting structural aspect is that all the areas are built of a common component and they communicate in a common way. The brain has a lot of responsibilities but the remarkable fact is that all the functions of the brain is made up of a common unit namely the neuron. Each neuron has one or many inputs where it recieves signals and depending on these signals the neuron decides what kind of signal it will output. The output of the neuron is then used for input to one or many other neurons that in turn decide how their output signal will be like. Each neuron will learn to recognize the most common pattern in the input signals. The output signal is then a measure of how much this neuron thinks it has recognized the pattern it normally sees. Think of each little neuron as a man (or woman!) that recieves a message (the input signals) and if he thinks the message is addressed to him he will start to yell and scream to his friends that someone sent him a message

Continuing with the metaphor of the little man, your brain consists of about 100 billion men who on the average have 7000 friends With so many men and so much communication (and so much screaming!) it is possible for the little men to transfer the knowledge of very complex patterns from one part of the brain to another. Although the communication between the men happens very fast, it is not instantaneous and therefore there might be a slight delay from when your eyes see a piece of chocolate till you remember that you are actually on a diet and should not eat it. The delay is what underlies the experience of one thought triggering another, which then triggers another and so on and so on. Each thought you have is the snapshot of what the little men are communicating to the conscious part of your brain (the “you”) in that very moment.

The key point to notice about how the brain works with respect to personal development is that each neuron/man learns and adjusts the trigger-pattern as time progresses. Therefore the concepts that your little men communicate will change according to what kind of input they recieve. So in a very real sense what you feed your brain is also a controlling factor in what you will get out of it. Knowing this will hopefully strengthen what you already know : that a life of continual learning and stimulating experiences is also the best way to enrichen your “inner life” - that is the voice inside your head that encapsulates your thoughts.

That we are all born with free will (although this is debatable among philosphers, we can assume this without any consequence for the thesis of this article) is what makes it possible to direct the communication going on in your brain. You can not control everything inside your brain, in that you can not decide which thought is triggered by what thought (what is known as your associations), but you can control the communication by controlling your focus. When you consciously focus on one particular thing, you are in effect deciding what group of men you will listen to and all other men will then be silenced or atleast muffled somewhat - we all know how hard it can be to concentrate with loud music in the background or other distracting factors. While you focus on a particular group of men, the message that they tell you is what will enter your conscious mind and what enters your conscious mind is conveniently also used as input to the rest of the brain - this means that what you focus on will be part of the information the neurons/men learn from and therefore contribute to the development of your brain (and consequently you).

The techniques and ideas of personal development are all either directly or indirectly designed to affect the way the men in your brain communicate and the patterns they react to. Learning how to do this in an intelligent way will make your personal abilities a result of your design rather than the random product of the information and thoughts you have been unconsciously feeding your brain in the past. Learning such techniques will put you in the driver’s seat of your own personal development. Learning such techniques will let you design your destiny!

While I am not a big fan of using quotes excessively in books and articles, they do serve a good purpose as a way to interrupt our daily patterns of thinking. The best sayings will make you stop and reconsider the subject anew and hopefully let you see things from a new perspective. The new distinctions and beliefs might be just what you need to see a solution for a problem you have been wrestling with, or it might inspire and motivate you to new heights of personal excellence. Think of it as a potential catalyst of change in your internal “map of the world” and remember that even small changes in your map can lead to big changes in the quality of your life if considered during a lifetime!

You might not like all the quotes I have selected and that is perfectly fine, just use the ones you find useful and ignore the rest. Given that each of us meet the world with a unique set of experiences and beliefs it is impossible to design a set of quotes that will appeal to everybody. Nevertheless i sincerely hope that you will find it a nice complement to the rest of the content and that it can be of value to you.

How often have your heard : “If everybody else is cheating, why shouldn’t I do it too?”. It is common to hear a phrase similar to this in business, sports and other types of competitive environments. In such environments it is sometimes even questioned whether it is possible at all to be successful if you do not cheat like you suspect everybody else does. You can also hear it in regard to paying for certain services, like downloading illegal MP3 tracks instead of buying the music from the official sources. In both cases it stems from a kind of implicit peer pressure, where you feel like you loose out compared to everybody else if you do not use the same morally questionable methods. Such a fear of loss is a very powerful psychological motivator but in these cases it motivates you to compromise your moral principles!

There is validity in the question of whether you should cheat and cut corners like “everybody else” or (implicitly) loose out by following your moral principles. Without acknowledging this validity, it becomes much harder to feel good about doing what is morally the right thing to do. The validity lies in the obvious fact that all things considered equal it is harder to win when your competitors cheats. So if you narrowly focuses on what it takes to win and disregards everything else, the natural conclusion is that you should cheat as much as possible. I am hoping though, that the perverted nature of this conclusion tells you that there is something wrong with the premise of focusing only on what it takes to win. What you should do instead is to widen your focus to consider the consequences of cheating not only to you, but to the way you are percieved by others.

How do you want your family to percieve you? Do you want your kids to think of you as a cheater? When you are long gone do you want people to remember you as a cheater? When you look in the mirror every morning from this day forward do you want to see a cheater? I think for most people the way they are percieved by others and especially their family will matter more than winning a contest where your competitors cheats. And leaving a legacy where you are remembered for all the good things you do, is probably also worth a lot more to you than whatever advantage you can get by cheating.

When you are overly concerned whether everybody else is getting an advantage by cheating and decide to cheat as well, you are in effect letting others decide your moral standards. Naturally this is not a good thing and you can easily end up feeling trapped by circumstances and wtih a guilty conscience. Without setting your own standards it is also hard to feel like a free person. This means you should be on the watch for the situations where you are tempted to lower your standards in order not to miss out.

In another article I told you about my anti-impatience mantra : “Success comes in chunks” and for this article I have a mantra to tell yourself when you are tempted to lower your standards : “I am simply not that kind of person”. You need to focus on your individuality and that even though others might not act according to the same high moral standards as you; it does not mean you have to stoop to their level. In the same way that there probably exists certain kinds of food you do not like to eat, you should embrace the idea that there is simply moral principles that it is not in your character to break.

When you promise yourself not to give in to the temptation of lowering your standards it also becomes much easier to decide what to do in such situations. Giving in is no longer an option and you can focus your energy on doing things the way a person with your character does them, you become more effective. All in all you will be a happier and more effective person that people will like more and perhaps even see as a rolemodel of integrity and character. So who in their right mind would give that up to get a small advantage by cheating?