halO

Some people view life as a competition to win. Everyone is an opponent to beat and their mindset is such that if someone else succeeds, there is less for them to gain. Needless to say, this is a very narrow world view and is based on several fears related to a scarcity mentality. They might be very successful in business, but can be a pain to be around.

Others again view life as a game. It's again not the best because even if they might be happy a lot of the time, they get into trouble time and again because they play with fire and drag others around into it. These are the people who play with others' emotions or perhaps gamble excessively. They live in the now, but never think of the consequences.

Personally I try to view life as an experience to share with those around me. Exploit your time here on earth to gain experiences and learn from them, do not dwell on the past but take what you have learned and move on. Look forward, but live in the now. Do not ever interfere with others' right to have their own experiences and learn, but of course protect your own right to do so as well.

Do not put up with those that wish you harm, but try to do so in a peaceful manner. Respect their right to live in ignorance if they so choose, but do not accept negative behaviour. You should love your fellow man, but some are best loved from a distance...

Notice that distinctly negative people rarely get very far in life - whether it be in business or relationships. If you constantly focus on the negative side of life and visualize negative things happening, that is what you will get. Could you imagine Thomas Edison going "This is just stupid, it will NEVER WORK so there is no point in even trying. Others will think I'm stupid if I try and fail, so I better not try it". Edison on the other hand, after some 25-hundred attempts at finding a suitable material, on being interviewed on all his "failures", answered that he had not failed. He had succeeded in FINDING 2500 materials that did NOT work!

This isn't just some silly positive thinking to feel good. After Thomas Edison had identified 2500 materials that did not work, there was no reason for others to waste the time to try it again, so significant information had been gained. If we take this further, during the dark ages when alchemists were inspired by their greed for gold to keep their research secret, a lot of them suffered from mercury poisoning because they had to "rediscover" that drinking the stuff was not actually such a good idea. Marie Curie died from pneumonia as a result of radiation poisoning from handling radium without proper protection. Luckily for us, Marie and Pierre Curie were real scientists and published their results.

But notice the difference in mentality, the scarcity and abundance principle. Some people naturally employ the world view that there is enough for everybody to go around, or at least that sharing with others is not going to affect themselves negatively in any significant way.

Scarcity is something advertisers and salespeople know to exploit and it is effective since it is so deeply rooted in fear, our primal fear that there is not enough (food or mates) to go around. Have you noticed that someone seem slightly more attractive when they are in a relationship? How about when the salesperson tells you that the item will only be in stock for a few more hours/days due to its popularity? You always want more that which you cannot have.

You should always focus on the positive aspects and outcomes. Instead of thinking about having less debt, think about having more wealth. Do it actively for a while and being a positive person will be ingrained into you. There is a technique called neurolinguistic programming and we use it all the time. It's really just a fancy word for "learning" - but more used in the context of training or conditioning your brain for something. For instance, if you fear speaking for large crowds, imagining doing it will help you do it when the time comes. The more vividly you can imagine standing there in front of the audience and being completely calm and relaxed with yourself, the more it will be true when it finally is time to do it.

You should also try this for other things in life, and not just related to overcoming your fears. If you want a new car or whatever, try to visualize yourself driving that car. Even go take it for a testdrive if you can, whatever to reinforce the impression of having it NOW. In the worst case scenario it will have been a nice fantasy, or else you're motivated and closer to your goal. There is extremely little to loose. The saying goes such that even the longest journey start with the first step, so start with imagining the journey and how fun it will be. Keep fantasizing about it while taking those first few steps and soon enough you will find yourself almost there, completely having forgotten about each step because you were too busy experiencing the journey.

Now lean back, think for a little while about what you want to do with your life. Visualize yourself as you would like to be in 10 years from now. Write it down vividly and in present tense as if you already had all of it. What do you look like, what clothes are you wearing? How does your house and surroundings look like? This is having ambition, and you are so definately worth it.