Duck and cover didn’t save us from the Cold War. Nor does it work for fear. Crawl into a ball, and it will eat you alive.

But like it or not, fear can be a catalyst for success. You always run faster when there’s a tiger at your tail. Fear is not only unavoidable – you need it. And it can take you far. 

In our latest In the Chair with Bear, Humanity Media CEO Anthony Bear sits down with trauma specialist Judith Richards and Bill Bennett, an award-winning filmmaker and author who recently released Facing Fear, a film that explores the psychology and metaphysics of fear. Inspired by his own Parkinsons' diagnosis, Bennett talks to some of the world’s leading experts in fear management. In the podcast, he, Richards, and Bear discuss the film, the roots of fear, and how people can use fear to actually enrich their lives and get what they want. 

Ralph Waldo Emerson delivers this advice: “Always do what you are afraid to do.” Joseph Campbell sounds like a career coach for pirates when he suggests: “The cave you fear to enter holds the treasure you seek.”

So let’s crawl into the darkness of fear and explore its potential. Because when we master fear, we become masters of ourselves. We can confront our anxieties on an entirely new dimension. Here’s how to turn fear into actionable combustion to achieve your dreams

Two Types of Fear and How to Tell the Difference

First, let’s talk about the two types of fear: True fear and false fear.

True fear is a saber tooth tiger, built into our DNA since our days living in caves, spearing woolly mammoths. It’s fear of a very real threat you must act on to avoid disaster, like Intel’s Fourth Quarter report $14 billion down, or climate scientists wondering how soon the Hoover Dam hits dead pool level. It’s that Parkinsons’ diagnosis that redefines the timeline of a lifetime. 

False fear is simply anxiety, fed by a media diet that markets fear like Big Macs. It’s helicoptering your children when crime is a just fraction of what it was during your own latch-key childhood. It’s being afraid of vaccines when actually the virus kills millions. It’s racism and Islamaphobia when the gunmen are American, white, and can’t get a date. 

But here’s the irony: False fear can still kill you just as effectively as a saber tooth tiger. Genes actually have less than a 5 percent impact on your risk to develop a particular disease. But 90 percent of all illness is stress-related. Like smoking, our worries can be fatal. And they can prevent us from reaching our full potential – if we let them.

Take the first step is to identify the reality of a fear. Whenever you feel the willies, ask yourself: Is this a hungry tiger or a worry tiger? Hungry tigers are literal threats to our existence, family, or livelihood. Worry tigers are existential – but they can still divide us from ourselves when we start to judge ourselves. 

Fear is an attachment to an experience in the past you think is going to happen again. When you feel fear in the pit of your stomach, what’s the reality of that fear? Name the fear and evaluate its realism. Because ignoring fear doesn’t make it go away – it will devour us whole. 

Once we put the fear into words, we can quickly judge whether it’s false or real. Once named,  fear dissipates like air from a balloon – we’re left with a flattened piece of rubber that’s a fraction of its original caliber.

Love: the Antidote to Fear

Whenever we face a fear, whether it’s true or false, we can choose to confront it with love.

In Facing Fear, Bennett interviews Michael Sandler, co-creator and host of Inspire Nation. Sandler faced a life-threatening crisis when he slipped and fell hiking in a remote creek. The fall shattered his thigh in excruciating pain but there was no one around to hear his screams. Responding to the fear of death, Sandler repeated a mantra: “Breathe in sunlight; send out love.” The fear dissipated and the meditation kept Sandler alive until help arrived.

The important thing is to be gentle with fear. Talk to fear like it’s a worried child and give it compassion. Calm the concern and provide perspective.

Notice how the fear feels in your body. Allow it to be and even learn to love it. Fear has its purpose. Acknowledge the situation. This is what’s happening now, but remember it’s temporary. This moment will soon pass. It’s all part of this great life adventure you’ve managed to survive so far. 

Rather than just focus on the problem, take a step back and breathe. Take a vacation in your mind. Ask yourself where you want to end up and visualize that reality. Breathe in the vibration and imagine a better future. Determine the steps it takes to get there and make a plan to begin the journey. Life happens when we let it.

Harness the Energy of Fear

Sometimes the obstacles in our path are so big we can’t see a way around them. Fear is our response. What do we do?

Use the fear to take action. Fear can be a calling, an instigator of adrenaline. It’s nature’s prime motivator, our wake-up call out of complacency. Harness its energy. Fear can take you far.

As Blackalicious begins the first track on their hip-hop record Nia:

“Struggling

Oh how we struggle

And the more we avoid it

The greater the struggle becomes

Until we realize

That struggle is a blessing”

Realize that fear itself can be a form of inspiration, even if we hate it. Think back on what has made you afraid over a lifetime. It’s often those scary moments that pushed us past our limits, the events that led us to build our lives, the struggles that unfolded the glory we now behold. 

You can’t escape fear, but you can harness it to do amazing things. Fear is adrenaline fuel to win the race. Grit your teeth and charge against the wind.

Managing a business, being a parent, living life – simply being human – can be super stressful, especially these days. So many of us are running on all cylinders, tires down to the last thread. As Fred Eaglesmith sings on one of the best trucker songs on the planet, “the light keeps coming on,” we’ve “got water in the fuel.”

No matter what we do, we can’t avoid stress. The more we try to get out of its way, the faster we get run over by the Mac truck of the Cosmos. But we can change how our minds and bodies react to it. 

Mindfulness can heighten our intuition and transform how we manage pain and stress by living gracefully in the moment. It can actually rewire our cells, prolong longevity, and help us live longer and healthier. 

In our latest In the Chair with Bear podcast, Humanity Media CEO Anthony Bear sits down with Joree Rose, a licensed marriage and family therapist, author, and mindfulness guru. They discuss the benefits of mindfulness – how it can transcend stress and lead to happier, healthier, and more connected lives.

Joree is a mindfulness and meditation teacher, coach, speaker, and author of the newly released “A Year of Gratitude,” “Daily Moments of Reflection, Grace and Thanks” as well as two mindfulness books, “Squirmy Learns to be Mindful” and “Mindfulness, It’s Elementary.” She has been featured on Oprahmag.com, NBCnews.com, Business Insider, KTLA News. 

Mindfulness: A state of being, not a verb

Joree describes mindfulness as “the answer to everything.” It’s about living with greater awareness by setting attention and intention. Only through self-awareness can we truly exist in the present moment – practice kindness and self-compassion, connect with the root of our breath as it heals our mind and body.

Interestingly, she points out that mindfulness is distinct from meditation, though many incorrectly use the terms interchangeably. Meditation is an action she describes as “a to do item.” Mindfulness is a state of being, “a to be item.” It’s a state of consciousness and a way of looking at the world that transcends pain, sadness, and stress by recognizing their existence, appreciating them in the moment, allowing them their due.

As she explains, mindfulness is not avoiding pain, but controlling how we react to it through non-attachment. Pain is inevitable; suffering is optional. We don’t have to like stress, pain, and sadness – but we can stop resisting it. And in doing so, we can experience true freedom.

The storm makes the rainbow possible. It cannot be avoided. Thunder and rain have their place and purpose. They are essential to the bloom.

How to Bystep the Beast of Judgement

Joree explains how her approach to mindfulness revamped her parenting style and helped her own children grow into self-actualized and capable human beings. But her advice can really apply to all facets of life, including business, careers, and overall happiness.

Don’t avoid fear – name it. Don’t pretend life is nothing but roses and your business is scaling to the sky. Sometimes it just isn’t, yet. And that’s okay. Recognize and acknowledge the adversity. Put it into words and writing. That’s what helps us process fear and disappointment. And then we can do something about it. 

As Joree explains, there’s the first dart and the second dart. The first dart is what life throws at you as part of the human experience. The second dart is what we throw at ourselves – the “why me, why now,” the internal judgment that can grow into a mythic beast. Practicing mindfulness helps to differentiate the two and allows us to control how we respond to stress and adversity.

Mindfulness and the Science of Youth

Science backs up the idea that mindfulness can help us live longer and healthier. Practicing mindfulness and meditation has been found to preserve telomeres, the protective caps at the end of chromosomes. They work like the plastic aglets at the ends of shoelaces to prevent them from unraveling. Shorter telomeres are associated with high stress and increase the risk for diseases like cancer. Researchers from the University of California found that people who meditate and practice mindfulness have significantly higher telomerase activity than non-meditators.

Under neuroplasticity, the brain can change and adapt to experience. The brain literally reorganizes pathways, builds new connections, and creates new neurons as it adapts to pain. 

Mindfulness works the same way. It provides control over the pain and provides a new path through adversity. It’s the bridge to freedom, helping us to lead happier and healthier lives in control of the fear that holds us down.

Live in the moment. Let go and release. Through mindfulness, we realize our capacity to choose and rewire our brains for a better present and future. Breathe through the pain and become one with the suffering – that’s how we grow. 

Last Thanksgiving’s launch of ChatGPT, an AI tool that writes like a human, prompted many on the web, especially those of us making our living crafting words, to wonder: Is this the end of human writing?

That’s pretty much how Sean Thomas sums it up in the Spectator: “We are screwed. By which I mean: we, the writers. We’re screwed. Writing is over. That’s it. It’s time to pack away your quill, your biro, and your shiny iPad: the computers will soon be here to do it better.”

I’ll admit I’m a little scared, or at the very least a bit nervous – not just for myself, but the whole human race. Because the real question that gnaws in the pits of our stomachs: Is this the end of human thinking, the end of imagination?

In November, OpenAI, the artificial intelligence company, released ChatGPT, a free tool that generates poetry, blogs, even screenplays and fantasy novels based on user prompts. And it’s impressively good, or at least good enough to not sound like a bot. 

Feeling nostalgic, I asked ChatGPT to write a poem about the Timex/Sinclair 1000, the first computer I had as a kid. It plugged into the TV and ran memory off the same tape deck we played Menudo cassettes. Check out the unedited results: 

A computer small and green and sleek,

The Timex/Sinclair 1000 unique,

With memory small, but truly chic,

It was a tech lover's dream come true peak.

It may not have been the best,

But it was ours and we were blessed,

To tinker and play,

With its simple yet elegant display.

Though it's gone now and out of date,

We'll remember it with fondness and no hate,

For the Timex/Sinclair 1000,

Will always hold a special place in our heart and head sum.

Aside from that last line (a special place in our heart and head sum???), the poem doesn’t read like a bot. It’s not exactly Robert Frost on ice, but it’s at least readable and passes somewhat for a human. 

Since its launch a few months ago, ChatGPT has gone lightning viral. In just five days, it landed 1 million registered users, making it the fastest-growing app ever, and is expected to cross 1 billion users by the end of the first quarter of 2023. 

In the last few months, ChatGPT has threatened everything from higher education to the film industry. With a couple of prompts, college students can churn out straight-A term papers in seconds. The thesis as we know may very well become obsolete like those Menudo cassettes. There’s talk of it someday replacing college professors, Wall Street day traders, and software engineers.

Some even propose it’s coming after our very thoughts. Our CEO Anthony Bear asked ChatGPT for original business ideas. It suggested:

1. Personalized nutrition plan based on DNA analysis
2. Bio-based and biodegradable materials for 3D printing
3. Virtual interior design consultation services

Why bother thinking if a machine spits it faster?

Are We All Just Matrix Battery Fodder?

Are humans doomed to become nothing but cheese puff-consuming, video game-playing couch potatoes where the AI does all the heavy thinking for us? Or worse – embryonic battery pods, keeping the ChatGPT3000 Matrix always charged at 100%?

Does the human imagination have built-in planned obsolescence, doomed to be replaced by the gadgets we create?

That would be tragic because machines lack Soul, the Blues, the Give Up the Funk.

Hallam, the SEO company, ran a little experiment. They published essentially the same blog twice, one written by a bot, the other by a human, and tracked the results. The two blogs ended up running neck and neck, with the AI blog ultimately taking the lead with a slightly larger number of impressions and better SEO rankings.

But when a human reads both blogs, the AI blog lacks soul. You can taste the can in the SPAM. It doesn’t sound original, lacks imaginative spark, and feels a bit ripped off. Of course, that’s exactly what the AI is doing – ripping off the Internet and reflecting the mass of the web back at you.

ChatGPT is the beefcake in the back of the class, looking over your shoulder and copying every answer – but in AI’s case, it’s the entire Internet. 

Sure, AI scores well, technically. Search engines seem to like it, but what about the reader, the human in the face of the blog, the very soul you’re ultimately striving to connect to, resonate and influence with your content?

After all, that’s the whole goal of Google’s Helpful Content update last year: “to better reward content where visitors feel they've had a satisfying experience.” And I suspect the Google gods will eventually evolve to better recognize AI and penalize it appropriately. 

In his blog, Sean Thomas writes: 

“All writing is an algorithm. As in: all writing is ‘a process or set of rules to be followed in calculations or other problem-solving operations’. The fundamental problem to be solved in writing is how to impart information in the form of words. Computers are good at algorithms. It’s their thing.”

And sure, writing at its base core is an algorithm, mainly because it’s a pain in the ass. You have to start somewhere to get the juices flowing. Otherwise, you’ll stare away all day at a blank screen and wonder when you’ll be replaced by an R2D2 with no personality. 

The Human Lightning Bolt 

But it’s that spark, that lightning bolt, that truly makes writing sizzle. The best writers are more like lightning rods – summoning an exterior universal consciousness that is almost infinite and divine. That’s true for the best poetry and novels, but it’s also true for journalism and marketing content, at least to some extent.

AI can’t do that. It just copies – washes, rinses, and repeats.

Twenty-two-year-old Princeton University Edward Tian spent his New Year’s writing a bot that can detect the presence of AI in writing. The tool, GPTZero, can identify the influence of a machine by measuring two things in a piece of writing: its perplexity and burstiness, in other words, the rhythm of the sentence structure. 

The best writing has a complex rhythm in its composition like Stuart Copeland of the Police. AI content tends to produce that synthesizer beat you rocked out to in the Walmart music aisle in the early ‘90s. 

At its heart and soul, writing is musical imagination. Do you really want it played by a machine, or do you want Funkadelic with the bass plugged into the Cosmos? Which content will resonate with your audience, not just rank on a metric, but truly influence the human potential – that heart-beating rhythm of imagination?

Tell stories that matter – not bullshit. That’s what keeps our culture thriving and alive, what keeps people thriving and alive. In the end, it’s human imagination – not canned SPAM – that makes the world a better place.

Plug in your brain, live it loud and keep the funk. That’s what will make life worth living in the land of machines. “Make my funk the P. Funk. I want my funk uncut.”

Listen to Bear's full interview with Chat GPT on our podcast, In the Chair with Bear.

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Waking up this morning over a steaming cup of coffee, a meme suggesting Trump crapped himself caught me off guard and immediately stole 20 minutes of my soul.

 I laughed, as anyone who still can should. And then I Googled “Trump poops pants in public” because, well, that’s the world we live in these days.

You can find an image of the 45th president, post golf swing, with an obvious brown stain down the back of his trousers. Turns out that image was Photoshopped. But it’s totally believable, considering the legal turd hurricane our former president increasingly finds himself in. No matter your take on MAGA, who wouldn’t mess themselves wearing those golf pants?

Maybe not the best way to begin the day that honors the legacy of MLK, I’ll admit. 

And then I thought: “What’s happened to our leaders?”

Elon Tweets, Phallic Space Ships, and the Bronterocs of Despair

If we’re honest with ourselves, we must sadly admit none of our leaders lately have made a historical impact anywhere close to the scale of Martin Luther King Jr.

Take even Obama. We got some inspiring speeches, some half-crap healthcare that I suppose is better than no healthcare at all, and sure, he looked good, even in a tan suit – but it was nothing like the Hope poster promised.

And Biden’s building highways and backing unions, which is great, but even on the best days, his presidency kinda tastes like flat Pepsi Zero that’s a little too warm. 

Yet the Baby Boomer generation grew up on Martin Luther King, both Kennedys, Malcolm X, and Maya Angelou – all while Wavy Gravy slopped buckets full of pancakes at Woodstock.  

King was assassinated on the verge of launching a campaign to end poverty in America. Maya Angelou heard the tragic news on her 40th birthday, just as she was preparing to raise money for his Poor People’s March.

These days, we wake up to Elon Musk battling COVID scientists on Twitter and praising his Tesla self-driving pencil pushers when a nine-car pile-up on the Bay Bridge sends a two-year-old to the hospital over a software failure of the same self-driving technology. 

Even Black Lives Matter, a much-needed and inspiring movement, is mired in a disappointing financial scandal that makes you question the very motives of humanity.

Sadly, so many of our leaders today are greedy narcissists, launching themselves into the galaxy on billion-dollar phallic spaceships with the insane ambition of becoming bronteroc lunch like Meryl Streep.

The Hope and Sunrise of Next Generations

It’s enough to leave you bitter and fall into pits of hopeless despair. Sometimes I look at my beautiful daughter and wonder, what kind of world are we leaving them?

But today honors Martin Luther King’s birthday, a day better spent remembering his words: “We must accept finite disappointment, but never lose infinite hope.”

And then I think about Raymond Mohler, Jr., who launched the Little St. Nick Foundation when he was just five years old. He’s grown now into an altruistic young man, but his charity continues to provide over 300 inspirational gift bags to sick kids in the hospital every single day. The organization helps kids in crisis smile and remember the joys of childhood when they find themselves in a scary place such as a children’s hospital. 

As a father, I find incredible inspiration in the dad who had his son’s birthmark tattooed on his chest so the child could transform his feelings of embarrassment into a solidarity of empowerment.

Because our youth are our hope of the future. Say what you want about the Millennials, the Zoomers, and the Alphas, okay Boomer, but the ambitions of upcoming generations are actually pretty inspiring. 

Even the hearts of many young pro football players beat where it counts. When Buffalo Bills safety Damar Hamlin collapsed on the field of an apparent heart attack this month, it was the players and their union who postponed the game out of respect and concern for their colleague. The NFL had insisted they play on. 

Hamlin’s heart may be tender, but it’s tender in the right place. Donations that poured in following the crisis raised over $8 million for children in need. Hamlin’s Chasing M’s Foundation has partnered with The Giving Back Fund, a national charity umbrella organization, to handle the deluge of donations. You too can donate to it here.

No, you don’t see Hamlin going into space, but you do see him looking up with genuine empathy for others who struggle.

And he's just one example. Hamlin’s “opponent” – Cincinnati Bengals quarterback Joe Burrow – has raised over $1.3 million through the Joe Burrow Hunger Relief Fund. Last October on Instagram, Burrow wrote this Mantra: “Everyone has a responsibility to do good.” 

Even before he went pro, in his speech accepting the Heisman Trophy, Burrow dedicated 31 seconds to some of the low-income friends he played and went to high school with in his poor Appalachian town of Athens, Ohio. That speech raised over a million dollars for the Athens Food Pantry, which had an annual budget of $70,000 to $100,000 before Joe’s speech went viral. You can donate to it here. 

Maybe MLK’s Poor People’s Campaign didn’t die in 1968. It’s alive and flourishing in the most unexpected places. Martin Luther King’s dreams were big but they’re steadily coming true. 

Perennial Responsibilities and the Mountaintop 

In the WiFi cafe where I write this, some hipster hero of a barista posted this sign in the bathroom: “You can do it. People overcome addiction every day.” The poster provides addiction support for the next desperate individual who uses that john to shoot up.

Those baristas may serve me up drip coffee and String Cheese calzones for a living, but they’ve got the golden hearts of professional football stars.

On the day of MLK’s assassination, a bomb threat specifically targeting King and his plane delayed his arrival in Memphis. That incident helped inspire his last prophetic speech:

“And then I got to Memphis. And some began to say the threats, or talk about the threats that were out. What would happen to me from some of our sick white brothers? Well, I don't know what will happen now. We've got some difficult days ahead. But it doesn't matter with me now. Because I've been to the Mountaintop. And I don't mind. Like anybody, I would like to live a long life. Longevity has its place. But I'm not concerned about that now. I just want to do God's will. And He's allowed me to go up to the Mountain. And I've looked over. And I've seen the Promised Land. I may not get there with you. But I want you to know tonight, that we, as a people, will get to the Promised Land. So I'm happy, tonight. I'm not worried about anything. I'm not fearing any man. Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord.”

The Promised Land belongs to our children and their grandchildren. King’s ideals and dreams are perennial, buried in this cold winter ground like tiger lilies. 

I look to my daughter, to all the Earth’s children, and I no longer “wallow in the valley of despair.” 

Please understand one day, through great work and effort to come, “all of God's children, Black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual: Free at last. Free at last. Thank God almighty, we are free at last.”

Because we all have “a responsibility to do good.” Let’s begin today and every day dedicated to that good, whether in the bathrooms of coffee shops, on the fields of the NFL, or in the living rooms where our children play.

True great leadership begins with each and every one of us. Go to the Mountain. 

Trust me – what you do is important, especially the little things, because hope is perennial. Even in the cold and dark of winter, its roots cannot die.

Happy birthday, MLK!

Happy New Year! 

It’s a new beginning of inspiring energy. “New Year, New Me” is how we begin every January. 

Even if we inevitably fall back on some old habits, we create new ambitions – and they have the power to dramatically change our lives for the better.

As a kid, every birthday I had felt monumental. On my second birthday, I told my mom, “I’m two now, so I don’t need this,” and I gave her my pacifier. When I was three, it was the Superman cape I gave up. And every year since then, on my birthday, I make a big decision to change my life in one way or another, and I do it.

This year, I gave up my Peloton bike in exchange for an actual mountain bike and hit the California trails.

New Year’s is like the world’s birthday – it’s our opportunity to make a different and better world for ourselves, our teams, and our families. 

What are going to be your contributions – start working out, consume less, spend more time creating and less time binging? Now’s the perfect time for change. What will yours be?

But before you nose-dive into grandiose ambitions for this next year, I created a fast and simple 10-step plan to make the whole process of renewal more manageable. It’s a great place to start if you want to see actual results, change worlds, and maybe even move a few mountains. 

(As a global note, you can start by WRITING EVERYTHING DOWN. Writing is a great way to manifest your destiny into actual reality. Because if you don’t write it down, it’s probably just a pipe dream.)

1.  Start by taking inventory of your life — the good, the bad, and the ugly. And be honest. First step: make a list of your accomplishments. Celebrate what you did well last year. Don’t be shy – your hard work manifested great things and should be celebrated. You deserve a champagne toast.  Yay for you!

2.  Next, make a list of the things that didn’t go so well. Life’s messy; success rarely flies like a crow. Where did you let yourself or others down? What could have gone better? How did bad habits block your dreams? Be honest – it’s all part of a healthy growth process.

3.  Take five minutes and write down everything you wish to happen this year. I mean this literally. Set a stopwatch like it’s a race. Treat it as a speed writing exercise and jot down as many things as you can in five minutes – anything you want to manifest this year. Go for quantity, not necessarily perfection. The idea is to give your dreams wings.

4.  Now take 15 minutes to read and reread your list. Circle your top five things you definitely want to create this year. Take a little time to ensure these five ambitions are specific and achievable. You have to believe your dreams are concrete and accomplishable. You’ll hold yourself accountable later – so be realistic while still harnessing the raw ambitions of your dreams.

5.  Give each of the five items a specific metric and time frame. These are aspirations you expect to accomplish by a specific date – not some pie-in-the-sky dreams. For example, "I will make $100,000 by September 1, 2023." Be specific and make it measurable. Your dreams need just a touch of realism to be actualized.

6.  Write all five goals in an “I already did it" format. In other words, instead of the example above, write “By September 1, 2023, I had already made $100,000 for this year.” 

Write your five concise goals on a small piece of paper and put it into your wallet, in an easily accessible place on your phone, someplace you can keep it handy and close to your heart. Every day, you will read these goals out loud, three times a day, like a mantra for success. 

(This is a strategy borrowed from Napolean Hill’s 1937 classic, “Think and Grow Rich,” which was inspired by a conversation the author had with Andrew Carnegie.)

7.  Next, you need to explore the “why” behind your goals and dreams. Write each of your five New Year’s goals on a separate piece of paper and list the reasons why you need to achieve each goal. 

Be very specific and allow yourself to get emotional. These goals are deeply personal – and you’re going to fight for them. Make the reason behind each goal compelling, meaningful, and necessary. Each goal is personal and comprises your identity. Who will you be when you’ve achieved your ambitions? What will you become, and how is each goal your gift to the world?

(This step is based on Tony Robbins Rapid Planning Method to actualize dreams and ambitions.)

8.  Then for each of the five goals, make a list of things you can do right away to begin achieving that goal. Each action needs to be simple and doable. For example, if you have a workout goal, your to-do list could be: buy running shoes, join a gym, get a gym bag and pack it, get a health app on your phone, hit the equipment. 

List all ACTIONS you can take today, tomorrow, this week, to progress toward your goal. Circle five doable actions to take and make sure you accomplish at least one every day. It can be small. Every journey is accomplished in simple steps, one after another. 

Because when you get down to it, true happiness comes from two simple actions:

• Identify what you want. 
• Take steps toward your dreams.

9.  Tell a few close friends and your family about your goals. Let them know your plans so they can support and encourage you and most importantly hold you accountable. Laying everything on the line and sharing it with the people you love can be a great strategy for goal manifestation.

10.  Every day, make sure to do two things:

• Read your goals out loud to yourself in statements phrased as if the goals are already accomplished. 
• Whether big or small, make at least one action toward your goals. It’s critical you accomplish at least one step forward each and every day.

Naturally, there will be struggles, successes, and failures, as there are in anything worth doing. But step by step, one foot in front of another, one hill after the other, you’ll get to where you need to be to actualize your dreams. You’ve got this. It’s not just the champagne talking. This is your year to become everything you want to be. 

Good luck!

It is a common story. You try to change your habits. You try to eat less or work out more or get up earlier and go to sleep earlier, and still the same patterns continue to emerge. The same destructive mindset continues to haunt you and sidetrack you away from your goals. The same ugly voice in your mind gets your attention, and, before you know it, you are sabotaging your own success again. 

Don’t worry, it happens to everyone. We make every effort to make real lasting change but at the end of all our efforts, we are like an elastic rubber band just coming back to our original shape all over again. How do I stretch myself out of this shape once and for all? How can I make a fundamental change in my life? Is it even possible?

According to Dr. Bruce Lipton the first seven years of your life create a sort of programming that you can only alter by chronic repetition or hypnotism (or , in my opinion, psychedelics but I will get into that later). In other words, he is saying that by the time you are seven years old, your financial, emotional, physical and spiritual success and/or failure in life is already determined. You are already shaped into the elastic band that you will always be and it is not easy to change that

This on its own feels really limiting. If this is just the way it is, then this is the way it is. I guess there is really no way to change without going to some extremes, or is there? Well let’s look at the two options. 

First you could do some hypnotism. When you are in a hypnotic state, your subconscious mind is open to suggestions. Whether or not we realize it, the subconscious mind is the one that is guiding our decisions and, in those pivotal moments, shaping our destiny. So if we can simply convince the subconscious mind to believe, for example, that we are wealthy or that we are successful, creative, and free, then we will automatically push ourselves to that new destiny. Well, that seems super easy so why isn’t everyone lining up to get hypnotized. Well, it's probably because it is a bit more complicated than that. 

According to Kimberly Friedmutter, a celebrity Hypnotherapist, your subconscious mind knows more than you can ever dream. She even uses hypnotherapy to find lost items — I would be hypnotizing myself every day to find my phone in the morning. But seriously, with a bit of work and time, you can use hypnotherapy to change the fundamental story that has been holding you back. So let’s get out those old fashioned watches and get to it. The only drawback that I can see, is that once you are hypnotized, now you are able to be influenced by someone else’s emotions and issues, so you may just leave the hypnotists office with a whole host of other emotional and psychological problems that you didn’t enter with. In other words, I wouldn’t let just anyone talk to my subconscious mind. 

But you can always use the second method. And that does not require a hefty budget or a deep surrender to someone else's idea of what your perfect life should look like. This method may take a bit more time, but it will work and you will be 100% in control. This method is what I think of as learning the ABCs. 

When you are a kid and you learn the ABCs, you actually repeat it thousands of times. I know this because my 20 month old is already singing the ABCs (like 50 times a day). Luckily she is unbelievably cute because that level of repetition would be so annoying from anyone else. But right now, the ABCs to you are second nature. In fact you can imagine all the ABCs in perfect order almost immediately. That is the power of repetition. Do it everyday 50 times a day and eventually it becomes second nature. For a kid, it takes them about 3 or 4 years of this to learn the ABCs. But what are my ABCs?

The hardest part is actually figuring out what it is that you need to change. In Tibetan Buddhism, the word for demons is synonymous with the word for a thought form. Demons are actually just thoughts that you think so regularly that they become manifested. And these negative mind mantras (mantras are just a phrase that you repeat over and over) are the beginning of these demons. And, in order to harness the energy of these demons and get them to work for you, you need to alter the mantra. You cannot just stop the mantra altogether, you need to reverse it. 

In other words, if you always find yourself saying something like, “I don’t have time for that,” try changing that ever so slightly to, “I always have time to do the things I love to do.” Then you will start finding time for the things you love to do and not having time for the things you don’t love to do. Your life will in fact shape itself around your mantras. 

The key here is repetition and diligence. You have to learn how to catch yourself in your negative mantra and then shift it. Do this everyday for the next couple years and you will in fact make that fundamental shift. 

Our lives are really up to us. We just have to figure out how to reprogram ourselves to live the life that we really want. This is life hack 101.