Do You Take A Fearless Approach To Life?

This guy seems to be doing pretty good with one of man's top fears of having a razor sharp beak anywhere within 5 feet of Captain Winky and The Boys

Do You Take A Fearless Approach To Life?

Hey you,

 

It’s #2.

 

Quick question.  How much do you let fear control your life?  A smidge or a lot?

 

For me, I was wired up real young to be afraid of everything from what people thought of me to confrontation all the way to physical pain.

 

As I’ve evolved directly/indirectly under the wing of mentors like the Chief, Tony Robbins, Dan Kennedy, Larry Crane, Robert Dilts and other geniuses, I’ve slowly but surely began living life freer and freer of fears that rob you of a life where you’re comfortable in your own skin.

 

“I Was Born Alone And I Will Die Alone.  I’ve Got To Do What’s Right For Me And Not Live My Life The Way Anybody Else Wants It.”

-50 Cent

The quote above comes directly from the book, “The 50^th Law” written by Robert Greene, the author of “The 48 Laws of Power”, “The Art of Seduction”, and “Strategies of War”.

 

Robert Greene is a shining example of a writer who “gets” the power of story.

 

Every one of the books he’s written are teaching the principles historic figures used to become icons and he does it by telling concise tales, giving you snap shots of how they embodied this principle in their life.

 

Everyone from Genghis Khan to Marilyn Monroe, Napoleon Bonaparte to Elvis, George Washington to Miles Davis, Barack Obama to 50 Cent.

 

World Famous Author Meets Thugged Out Rapper?

I’m pretty embarrassed to say that Robert’s book was on the front shelf at my local Barnes and Noble and I completely shunned it once I saw 50 Cent’s name as the co-author.

 

I enjoy some rap but not 50 Cent.  On top of this I think I thought Robert was out of his mind joint venturing with a gangsta rapper.  After hearing CD 1 of this program I knew I had behaved as an idiot.

 

My prejudice kept me from this magnificent resource.  This book should’ve been in my library as soon as it came out.  Thanks to the chief, it is now.

 

Robert had his radar open to what he could learn from anyone and so when 50 Cent approached him to do a book together, he at least heard him out.  As they got to talking, they found that even though they were raised in complete opposite surroundings, they saw the world in similar ways.

 

“How Open Are You To Wisdom?”

Today, I want to share with you a piece of a particular chapter directly from “The 50^th Law” that grabbed me based on the idea of living fearlessly.  You be the judge on how valuable this information will be for you…

 

“You came into this life with the only real possessions that ever matter – your body, the time you have to live, your energy, the thoughts and ideas unique to you and your autonomy.

 

But over the years you tend to give all of this away.

 

You spend years working for others – they own you during that period.  You get needlessly caught up in people’s games and battles, wasting energy and time that you will never get back.

 

You come to respect you own ideas less and less, listening to experts, conforming to conventional opinions.  Without realizing it, you squander your independence, everything that makes you a creative individual.

 

Before it’s too late, you must reassess your entire concept of ownership.

 

It’s not about possessing things, money or titles.  You may have all of that in abundance but if you’re someone who still looks to others for help and guidance, if you depend on your money or resources, then you will eventually lose what you have when people let you down, adversity strikes, or you reach for some foolish scheme out of impatience.

 

“True ownership can come only from within”

 

It comes from a disdain for anything or anybody that impinges upon your mobility, from a confidence in your own decisions, and from the use of your time in constant pursuit of education and improvement.

 

Only from this inner position of strength and self-reliance will you be able to truly work for yourself and never turn back.  If situations arise in which you must take in partners or fit within another organization, you are mentally preparing yourself for the moment when you will move beyond these momentary entanglements.

 

If you do not own yourself first, you will continually be at the mercy of people and circumstance, looking outward instead of relying on yourself and your wits.

 

Understand:  we are living though an entrepreneurial revolution, on a global scale.

 

The old power centers are breaking up.  Individuals everywhere want more control over their destiny and have much less respect for an authority that is not based on merit but on mere power.

 

“We Have All Naturally Come To Question Why Someone Should Rule Over Us, Why Our Source Of Information Should Depend On The Mainstream Media, and On, and On”

 

We do not accept what we accepted in the past.

 

Where we are naturally headed with all of this is the right and capacity to run our own enterprise, in whatever shape or form, to experience that freedom.  We are all corner hustlers in a new economic environment and to thrive in it we must cultivate the kind of self-reliance that helped push Fifty past all the dangerous dependencies that threatened him along the way.

 

For Fifty it was very clear – he was alone in the house he grew up and on the streets.  He lacked the usual supports and so he was forced to become self-sufficient.

 

The consequences of being dependent on people were so much more severe in his case – it would mean constant disappointment and urgent needs that went unmet.  It’s harder for us to realize that we’re essentially alone in this world and in need of the skills that Fifty had to develop for himself on the streets.

 

“We Have Layers Of Support That Seem To Prop Us Up.  But These Supports Are Illusions In The End.”

Everyone in the world is governed by self interest.

 

People naturally think first of themselves and their agendas.  An occasional affectionate or helpful gesture from people you know tends to cloud this reality and make you expect more of this support – until you’re disappointed, again and again.

 

You are more alone than you imagine.  This should not be a source of fear but of freedom.  When you prove to yourself that you can get things on your own, then you experience a sense of liberation.

 

You are no longer waiting for people to do this and that for you (a frustrating and infuriating experience).  You have confidence that you can manage any adverse situation on your own.

 

Prime Example of This…

 

You think you’ve got problems?

 

 

Look at a man like Rubin “Hurricane” Carter – a successful middleweight boxer who found himself arrested in 1966 at the height of his career and charged with a triple murder.

 

The following year he was convicted and sentenced to three consecutive life terms.  Through it all Carter vehemently maintained his innocence, and in 1986 he was finally exonerated of the crimes and set free.

 

But for those nineteen years, he had to endure one of the most brutal environments known to man, one designed to break down every last vestige of autonomy.

 

Carter knew he would be freed at some point.  But on the day of his release, would he walk the streets with a spirit crushed by years in prison?  Would he be the kind of prisoner who keeps coming back into the system because he can no longer do anything for himself?

 

He Decided That He Would Defeat The System

 

He would use the years in prison to develop his self-reliance so that when he was free it would mean something.

 

For this purpose he devised the following strategy:  He would act like a free man while surrounded by walls.  He would not wear their uniform or carry an ID badge.  He was an individual, not a number.  He would not eat with the other prisoners, do the assigned tasks, or go to his parole hearings.

He was placed in solitary confinement for these transgressions but he was not afraid of the punishment, nor of being alone.

 

“He was afraid only of losing his dignity and sense of ownership”

As part of this strategy, he refused to have the usual entertainments in his cell – television, radio, pornographic magazines.  He knew he would grow dependent on these weak pleasures and this would give the wardens something to take away from him.

 

Also, such diversions were merely attempts to kill time.  Instead he became a voracious reader of books that would toughen his mind.  He wrote an autobiography that helped gain sympathy for his cause.

 

He taught himself law, determined to get his conviction overturned by himself.  He tutored other prisoners in the ideas that he had learned through his reading.  In this way he re-claimed the dead time of prison for his own purposes.

 

“When He Was Eventually Freed, He Refused To Take Civil Action Against The State – That Would Acknowledge He Had Been In Prison And Needed Compensation”

He needed nothing.

 

He was now a free man with the essential skills to get power in the world.  After prison he became a successful advocate for prisoners’ rights and was awarded several honorary law degrees.

 

Think of it this way: dependency is a habit that is so easy to acquire.  We live in a culture that offers you all kinds of crutches – experts to turn to, drugs to cure any psychological unease, mild pleasures to help pass or kill time, jobs to keep you just above water.  It is hard to resist.

 

But once you give in, it is like a prison you enter that you cannot ever leave.

 

You continually look outward for help and this severely limits your options and maneuverability.

 

“When The Time Comes, As It Inevitably Does, When You Must Make An Important Decision, You Have Nothing Inside Yourself To Depend On”

Before it’s too late, you must move in the opposite direction.

 

You cannot get this requisite inner strength from books or a guru or pills of any kind.  It can only come from you.  It is a kind of exercise you must practice on a daily basis – weaning yourself from dependencies, listening less to others’ voices and more to your own, cultivating new skills.

 

***One of the most important skills and entrepreneur or business owner could ever cultivate is the ability to communicate influentially…in all formats, verbally, in print, pixel, on video, on stage.  CLICK HERE and you’ll have direct access to what I learned from Dan Kennedy’s Influential Writing seminar about and how he mastered this…

 

As happened with Carter and Fifty, you will find that self-reliance becomes the habit and that anything that smacks of depending on others will horrify you.

 

 

 

Do you agree or not?

 

Talk to me.

 

Talk soon,

Note Taking Nerd #2

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Tags: 33 Strategies of War, business building, Inner Game, Mindset, MyNoteTakingNerd, MyNoteTakingNerd #2, Robert Greene, Self management, The 48 Laws of Power, The 5oth Law, The Art of Attraction

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