Step 14 - Epiphany
Special Announcement: As of October 9th, 2006 2:00pm EST
Several posts back I promised that; "I will be writing, soon, something I have just seen about myself, that has stopped me from being successful all my life and this Experiment has been an element, in helping me, to finally see it."
I am a fairly good at doing things, especially with my hands. I do have some skills and talents to a certain extent. In other words, if I look at myself objectively, I could come to the conclusion that I have enough capabilities to be successful. Some people consider that I am already successful. From an intellectual stand point I am no shlep either. It may sound like I am blowing my own horn here, but I am only mentioning it because, to me, it didn't matter how capable or talented or intelligent I was, I was not a success. Period.
Why did I think that? I had a belief and that belief was this: "if I couldn't make a million dollars in a very unique way I was a complete failure". I am not sure how to define what that "unique way" actually was, but I figured I would "Know it when I saw it".
Somewhere along the line, when I was young, I formed the belief that the only way I could consider myself a success was to become a millionaire. It didn't matter to me that I had capabilities that many people considered adequate or even exceptional.
I passed off those capabilities as meaningless and common place. In other words, anyone could do those things and they weren't millionaires, so those talents or abilities must be valueless. That first million was my only concept of success.
It was not only a detrimental belief, it was a devastating one. It caused me to miss out on many things for the last thirty something years, as I tried to come up with some clever way to get that Million dollars. It also caused me to do things that cost me or lost me money, as well as a lot of time and who can even begin to imagine what else. In the mean time, that approach was torture, torment and misery twenty-four hours a day with no sign of relief. I was a complete failure in my own mind.
As I look back, the belief may have been formed by an event with my Father. My Father always wanted to teach me to be a winner and he did this by never letting me win any games we played. He felt it would make me tougher to really win and not win because he let me. He had an extremely difficult childhood and had to be tough to survive. So teaching me to be tough was very important to him. I am just glad he didn't name me "Sue" or something like that. Anyways, always losing at competitions may have had an unexpected side effect. By losing, almost all the time, I learned to lose rather than win. Practice makes perfect even when you practice losing.
Ultimately, this may have been the best thing for me because I was a relentless, indomitable child who fought like crazy to win. Learning to lose may have provided me with a better sense of humility and balance and may have staved off any driving ambitions for world domination.
One day, my Father was putting golf balls into a plastic cup in the livingroom. He asked me if I wanted to play. As we were putting, he made a friendly wager and bet me a quarter I couldn't put the ball in the cup. I proceeded to put the ball in the cup. He then suggested "Double or Nothing". So if I could put the ball in again, I would win Fifty cents, but if I failed I would get nothing. I kept sinking putts and my Father keep betting "double or nothing". Twenty something putts later he owed me over a million dollars. Phenomenally, I kept sinking one putt after another.
The more money that I was owed, the more focused I became and just kept putting the golf balls into the cup. Emotionally, it became highly intense with huge amounts of money riding on every putt I made.
When I got to over a million dollars I told him I was done and wanted to collect my money. But He wanted me to putt once more at "double or nothing". Naturally he was trying to get out of the situation caused by my unusual string of putts. He knew I couldn't do it forever, I was bound to miss eventually. Although I wanted to stop, I putted again. This time, I missed and lost all the money. I was totally upset by this, of course, and went and complained to my Mother who proceeded to berate my Father. My Father has no memories of any of this.
I probably formed some mechanisms and beliefs to deal with the situation. I may have then spent the next thirty-five years or so trying to win that game again. Most everyone is spending a great amount of time and energy trying to either repair or redo something from their past, even if they are not consciously aware they are doing so. Some of those things may seem so trivial that it would be hard to imagine that they affect us to this day.
Of course my Father wouldn't have been able to pay me the million dollars, that is ridiculous, and deep down I knew that even when I was a kid. But I feel that somehow that situation changed the way I believed money could be made, especially the first Million. That was my first experience with Doubling to a Million.
It is kind of ironic, that it is another "Double to a Million" attempt that has helped me to see some of these things, or perhaps it is not so ironic after all. It may very well be that the door into a bad or false belief is the same door out, only after a long sojourn there. The key is finding the door again, or perhaps, timing has everything to do with it.
Lets get back on track after that detour down memory lane.
I was trapped by this belief system. No matter what anyone said, I couldn't get myself out or have the ability to apply a different alternative to approaching matters of making money. It wasn't that I couldn't see those alternatives, I am fairly good at examining all perspectives of an issue, I just couldn't actually do anything any different about it, at all.
One job I had, when I was quite young, I wore many hats at and I had a lot of job titles. I was the Electronics Technician, Quality Control Tech, PCB Designer, Draftsman, Graphics artist putting together technical manuals, marketing material, training documents, plus inventing a few tools to speed up production by 300%.
I was working my tail off. From the standpoint of completing all my work well I was successful. When my review came up, the President gave me a Fifty cent an hour raise, said I didn't deserve it, and said that my mind was a million miles away as well as other derogatory statements. I look back on that comment now and I realize he was wrong. My mind wasn't a million miles away it was a million dollars away.
After starting this "Double to a Million Plan" not only did I begin to see things in an entirely new and different light but I suddenly had the ability to apply these new principles and benefits from them.
Some of this may be why I am so adamant about following the rules as fanatically as I am.
The first thing I saw, as I mentioned in a previous post, was that my focus was on the money, way off in the horizon, a million miles away and I was tripping on what was immediately right in front of me. Some people call that a "dreamer" and perhaps that is what I was. I have a tendency to be quite visionary and the future seems to be a place I am more keenly comfortable with. The problem with having certain gifts that enable you to see a long ways off is the tendency to not be able to focus on the practical, down to earth, in your face, right in front of you, sort of things.
So you spend a lot of time with bruised knees from tripping and falling on the immediate or temporal. I have taken a whoopin from the temporal, (a.k.a.) the here and now. Although I believe that; "Only that which is eternal is valid", the temporal can be a real pain in the butt as it beats you up one side and down the other.
The revelation I have had during this DTAMP experiment or project is this:
The million dollars is not the measurement of success, it is only the consequence of the true success. Discovering who you are, what you're made of, increasing your capabilities, expanding yourself, growing, that is the true success. And if you focus on those things, the wealth, the million dollars, the money, will follow.
The skills that you hone, the talents that you gain, the experience that grows and the wisdom you acquire, these are the things that are the true success. The million dollars is merely a consequence of it.
Let me say it again, one more time:
Money is not the measurement of success. The gained skills, insights and capabilities are the measurement of the success. The money is a byproduct of that success.
What I have begun to see, going through the last 14 Steps, is the value and enjoyment of working the projects and gaining the experience and skills associated with each step. Suddenly, instead of the money becoming the prominent figure in this, what I was doing and learning became the most important and rewarding factor.
It may very well be, that because the amount of money I was collecting on each project was so small, that the comparison between the amount of effort and the amount of money received changed my perspective on the value of the money. It took a lot of work to gather up all the cans and bottles to receive so little for it, yet the experience was actually fun and rewarding in an entirely different way. It was so disproportionate between the work and the money that it seemed almost ridiculous to do it for the money and I started to do it to clean up the streets of my community. Suddenly the value shifted from money to community service and the benefits of living on clean roads. The money took a back seat.
The revelation of money taking a back seat was an Epiphany. Money suddenly took on a new meaning and dimension. It lost its power and its luster and the belief lost its significance. Money fell into its correct position, merely a tool to use and the belief lost its ability to continue to create bondage and havoc, replaced by a healthier belief.
As a result, I am seeing rapid improvement in all the financial areas of my life that, before this, suffered from my incorrect focus on the consequence and byproduct and not on that which is the true success.
Another consequence is the gaining of the ability to enjoy what it is I am doing. When I was only doing things to achieve the end goal of the money, I could not enjoy the work or the process thus losing out on any immediate benefits. When everything one does is for the ultimate goal of the profit then the ability to enjoy the process may be lost.
This "Double Your Way to a Million" idea has been just what I needed and came along at the perfect time.
Motto: It is only "one" found penny.
Regards,
Xinfinitum
DTAMP - Double To A Million Plan
posted by Xinfinitum | 10:32 AM PermaLink
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