The Best Years of Your Life… Now!

What does give your life real meaning?

Maybe you’ve asked yourself this same question.

I’m convinced those relationships, things and situations which gives meaning to your life ultimately comes down to your doing things which positively impact the lives of others. Something you do that inspires another person to trust their own potential. Rise above their environment. Become more than they once believed was possible. To not give up on their dreams.

I was recently reminded of how what we do can have an important affect on someone else’s life. It happened when I ran across a file I had from 26 years ago. You see, I had self-published a book. A book that sold 33,000 copies and Amway of Australia, called “the bible of multi-level-marketing”.

It was titled “Multi-Level Mastery” and basically contained what I had learned from the time I was still in college at the Indiana University School of Music and started a part-time income generating business. Which within two years had netted me 5 new cars and a new house! It was a book on how to build a multi-level marketing business using the universal principles of success. Believe it or not, at that point in time, the book was the first of it’s kind.

The file

Inside the file were letters from people who had read the book. Lot’s of “thank you, it helped me understand what to do” kinds of letters …and then there were a few “what you said changed my life” letters. The point is, I was 31 years old when I wrote the book. I put forth what I believed in my heart was a way to conduct a business and live your life that would result in success …and it made a difference in people’s lives.

At the time I made a lot of money. Bought my first Mercedes and so on.

That car now sits in a field (in Montana) slowly rusting away. All the money I made from the book was spent decades ago. Yet here were testimonials, still hanging around in a file. The file was full of real abundance that I didn’t fully appreciate as a young man. What I didn’t realize was that the trophies (car, money, stuff) was a by-product of doing something which made a difference in the lives of other people.

I was able to take some life and business lessons and turn them into something that benefited others… I was too immature to fully appreciate that the real purpose of the undertaking was to pass on knowledge. Make someone’s life a little easier. To be a source of inspiration.

26 years later …I get it.

I’ve lived a life with many adventures and operated several businesses. Sure I’ve won advertising awards, achieved national recognition and yes made money …but nothing has made me feel more gratitude for time well spent than that old file full of letters.

Proof that for at least a few moments in my life, what I had done with my time 26 years ago had real meaning.

-Bob Baran

I’ve lost count as to how many times I’ve watched the movie “Peaceful Warrior” since it was released in 2005. Based on Dan Millman’s novel “Way of the Peaceful Warrior” it’s a powerful and entertaining story about a young man’s spiritual awakening. It’s one of my most treasured dvd’s.

There are several powerful themes within the movie that ultimately converge to create a series of epiphanies which result in the main character’s transformation. I want to discuss one of those themes:

Getting the garbage out of your mind

I call the stuff in your conscious mind “gooble-di-gook”. Often a bunch of useless information that takes up space in your mind and draws your attention away from what’s really important.

For some, “gooble-di-gook” is a never ending series of opinions and beliefs (usually of other people) they hide behind. Then spit it out as a way of portraying themselves to be more than they really are. Bring up a subject and they start quoting authors you never heard of and aren’t really relevant to the conversation at hand. They start throwing mental garbage at you because, like a parrot, they have never actually internalized what they claim to know.

If they did, they would never have to point to any authority other than themselves in order to justify who they are and what they know.

Getting back to the garbage in your mind:

The mind has an infinite capacity to store information. The trouble is, that information takes energy to maintain. So we end up focusing our vital energy in the never ending rationalization process which is necessary to sift through all that mental stuff. In other words, we end up living in our mind instead in the present.

So over time life becomes little more than an angst-like sifting process. A never ending internal (and external) conversation that always has more questions than answers. You have to constantly work your way through a lot of gooble-di-gook. You can no longer see things as they really are because your energy and attention is focused on rationalizing and justifying all that stuff in your mind. Each one of those thoughts creating their own limitation, confusion, contradiction and conflict. This ultimately keeps you from recognizing and taking action on your true potential. In other words: You’re stuck.

Time for a mind-dump

Take all that stuff in your head that’s really someone else’s original thoughts and dump it. You know, delete it. Erase it. Stop using it as the reason why you think a certain way. Stop justifying and rationalizing who you are and what you believe using someone else’s attitudes, opinions and beliefs as your authority. Start trusting yourself.

Who you are and what you believe does not require “permission” from some outside source. No other person, institution or philosophy should be the foundation upon what your inner knowingness is based upon. It should be your experience.

Stop wasting your precious time sifting though gooble-di-gook. It’s keeping you from experiencing the moment because your attention is being placed on your memory.

Maybe we don’t have someone who can throw us off a bridge like in the movie, “Peaceful Warrior”. Suddenly and unexpectedly in a free-fall where we experience a mind-dump for a few seconds.

But we do have free-will and the ability to make choices:

Are you going to continue to live in your mind (and the mind’s of others) or are you ready to begin the process of becoming an “original”. Living life on your own terms. Making decisions for your own reasons and never again using someone else as an authority to justify your attitudes, opinions and beliefs?

Let the world know who you are and what you think. Your life experience is the only justification you will ever need…

-Bob Baran

Making a dream become reality is a process which takes your imagination and transforms it into a series of situations, relationships and things which places you in the best possible time and place to make your dream come true.

In other words, it’s a journey into new possibilities.

Possibilities that do not currently exist in your day-to-day reality. Your dream acts like a beacon in the distance which causes you to make different choices than those you have been making. The new choices move you towards the people, places and things you will need in order to make your dream come true.

The secret of happiness

Those who have discovered the secret of personal fulfillment understand that the real benefit of working toward a dream is that you are doing something you love. It’s the new relationships, things and situations you create along your journey which present you with the greatest opportunity to use all that you are and then some. It’s discovering your new expanded self which is always the most fulfilling part of the process.

Following your dream causes you to travel beyond your immediate limitations while it creates opportunities for you to push the edge of your potential. Those who maintain a joyful lifestyle have integrated doing what they love and making progress toward manifesting their dreams. They live a life of self discovery and
self realization.

-Bob Baran

Having been in the music business for most of my adult life I’ve had the opportunity to interact with people from all socio-economic strata. My experience has taught me one thing:

There are families which breed and cultivate anti social behavior.

A case in point: A few days ago I reconnected with a musician friend from a band I produced almost 25 years ago. One of the other band members, who had passed away suddenly about 15 years ago, became the subject of our conversation. As I recalled, his wife’s family had been one of those that always seemed to be in trouble with the law.

“Did you hear the latest”, my old friend began.

“His wife (the deceased band member) was caught embezzling money from the State and his son (who was 6 years old when he died) was doing time in State prision!”

Somehow it didn’t surprise me. Her other family members had or were doing time for various unlawful activities.

Back in 1985 I had spent a few hours with the family, in their home talking about the music business and plans for the future. The Matriarch of the family was a hard working very pleasant woman …someone hard not to like. Other family members had notorious reputations but treated me very well. At first glance you would think this was an average blue collar family excited about the future.

You would be wrong.

It turned out to be one of those “families” every law enforcement agency knows about in their given locale. It’s something that exists in our society, but for some reason nobody seems to talk much about. The fact is that there are certain families who literally breed criminals. When you look at the family tree you see a re-occuring pattern of anti-social behavior extending to brothers, sisters, aunts, uncles, fathers, mothers over many generations …you get the picture.

These are families without a sense of right and wrong.

There is no “little voice inside” that says: “Don’t do this …It isn’t right!” These are people who are blind to the ramifications of their actions. They don’t know how to “connect the dots”. They never see what’s coming next and always seem to make the wrong decisions.

The family of the deceased musician had no such history.

What happened to his son was the result of being raised by one of “those” families.
I believe the kid didn’t have a chance. The interesting thing is that nobody has to ever “take some one by the hand” and teach them how to be anti-social. I don’t believe family members sat around teaching the kid how to lie, cheat and steal. I think it was a much more powerful teacher that influenced the behavior of this kid.

Attitude: The invisible language of your inner feelings.

Seldom verbally communicated within a family, attitude, which is the first “feeling” before opinion and belief (step in to justify and rationalize that feeling) is learned long before the opinions and beliefs that go along with it.

At a very early age the youngster was already being “programmed” with the attitude and feelings of anti-social behavior. His upbringing and life experience then supported and cemented those feelings into a mind-set. A mind-set which would give him a way of looking at life that would in time put him in a prison cell.

What I’ve just described is an extreme case of “family disease”.

The real question is how much of your current attitude about life is is nothing more than a by-product of your own family’s “disease”? Those attitudes that have become so much a part of you, that you’re not even aware that they, not you, are controlling your life.

Hey, you’re not a bad person ….but you may still be suffering from a form of the “disease”.

If you feel stuck and feel like something is missing in your life …there may be a direct correlation to a “family attitude” working against you, holding your life progress in check.

-Bob Baran

You may be an energy vampire …victimizing yourself!

There’s a good chance that one relationship, situation or thing is responsible for draining half of your vital energy on a day-to-day basis. The scary thing is that you may not be aware of it!

It’s become a part of your comfort zone.

You’ve created a number of ways to deal with it which minimize your awareness of it. Each one of those numerous “solutions” you’ve put into place also require energy in order to maintain.

Instead of dissolving the problem, you’ve damed it up and built a structure around it to the point where you can no longer recognize it as a problem. So it’s there affecting you every hour of every day, an energy vampire that is hiding in plain sight. Leaving you less vital energy for doing those things which bring you happiness.

Most unhappy people are the victims of several inner energy vampires they don’t even know exist. They don’t know because at some point in time a decision was made to avoid or deny the problem. Finding a solution that would have eliminated the situation back in time, when it first became a problem, would have been a bit uncomfortable. Getting rid of a molehill takes a little work.

Letting it grow into a mountain, you can’t even see, will obviously take a lot more time and energy to recognize, realize and take action to fix.

I have maintained for years that real change, which starts with the recognition of those energy vampires hiding within you, only requires a 1% alteration in order to made a measurable difference in your life.

You don’t have to move a mountain in order to change the direction of your life.

Many of our Clients have experienced a surprising upswing in their lives, from income to personal relationships, in as little as thirty days using our system. I believe this progress comes as much from recognizing, for the first time, where their energy is being drained and wasted as it does the steps they actually take to make changes in their lives. Just connecting the dots which lead back to the root cause of what is blocking your progress has an immediate effect.

You begin to feel more in control and not as overwhelmed.

All of a sudden, you begin to realize that there are simple steps you can take which begin to turn your life around.

A 1% course correction in the trajectory of your life will always result in a very different future than the one your current life path is taking you to.

Want more of the same? Do nothing and your future will mirror your past. Recapture 1% of your vital energy and your day-to-day life will immediately respond to the new influx of energy.

After all, I’ve heard my entire life that we only operate on five percent of our true potential..That potential is the amount of energy available to us. Increase your energy by one percent and you’ll arguably increase your potential by 20%!

1% of 5% is 20%, right?

-Bob Baran