“REPEAT THIS AFTER ME…”

To Wed or Not to Wed…Now that’s the Question
April 16, 2011
OF CULTURE SHOCKS AND LEVERAGE
May 13, 2011

“REPEAT THIS AFTER ME…”

In case you have not noticed, this is my first blog post after getting married…but I don’t say, I just :whistle: I know I know…some might be asking… “So what?”…others might not be that blunt but they could be wondering…what difference does it make anyway? Well, time will tell. One thing is for sure though that I have experienced a MAJOR paradigm shift in my life and just like scrambled eggs, I will definitely not be the same again.

Out of the blue, an inspiration hit my heart of which I tweeted and tweeted for hours on end on Easter Sunday (Get these inspirational tweets under the hash tag [#MarriedManTweets] on www.twitter.com). For those in the Christian Faith, Easter is one of the most crucial ‘holidays’ in the Christian calendar. Easter Sunday is actually believed to be the day that Jesus Christ rose from the dead, three days after being nailed on the cross. That point alone has caused controversies the world over…and in fact the MAJOR point of hostility between Christians and other faiths is the CLAIM that Jesus Christ rose from the dead. I am told that it his historically proven that Jesus walked on earth and taught and that He was a controversial figure. I will not delve into that discussion today or any time soon.

Picking from the Christian faith (of which I belong), there are pertinent lessons that can be learned. I am not saying that it is from the Christian faith only that lessons can be learnt. The concept of this post however cuts across all walks of faith and I believe is one of the most important concept or ingredient one can adopt for success, wealth, significance and greatness…essentially to paint one’s Life Signature.
Sample this: You cannot be a Christian if you do not BELIEVE. Belief is a choice, in fact no one forces you to believe. Believe what? Believe that Jesus Christ rose from the dead and that He is Lord, and that He died for your sins, and that your belief in Him makes His death a scapegoat for your debt of sin, since everyone has sinned. That belief does not stop there, you follow it up with confession. Confessing is basically ‘saying the same thing that God says about you’. You believe and then you confess. Those are two strong ingredients for a Christian life. In fact every time you see a new Christian convert, they are normally led into a ‘confession prayer’ that starts with the preacher saying: “Repeat this after me…”
In the development of Life Signatures, BELIEF is an absolutely critical ingredient. Listen carefully. You cannot develop a life of success if your BELIEF SYSTEM is negative to success. The same applies to wealth. If you do not believe strongly that you ARE wealthy…you cannot achieve wealth. The same applies to significance. You cannot live a Life Signature while your belief system tells you that you are inconsequential and that you do not matter on earth. That is how critical belief systems are! You cannot create or design a Life Legacy while operating with limiting Beliefs!!
The second most critical thing is SELF TALK. What do you say about yourself? What do you call yourself? What do you see about yourself? What you say about yourself to yourself is an absolute critical aspect of designing a life of greatness. You will not rise to a level of greatness if your self-talk destroys or diminishes your greatness. If you have nothing positive to say about yourself, by all means just SHUT UP!! Stop the conversation of complaints and struggles…and calling yourself a ‘hassle-r’. “How are you doing Mr. X?” “Oh, am JUST TRYING, oh, I am JUST HASSLING, oh, I am JUST HANING IN THERE….oh am JUST…” You can fill in the blanks. Success has a language. So does failure. The language of success is Present tense, Positive, Personal and Passionate. Your self-talk is your own dosage of inspiration and motivation. Self talk however stems from your BELIEF SYSTEM…since you will not declare what you do not believe.
So how does one get a BELIEF SYSTEM for Life Signatures? Again, we will borrow from the Christian faith, and I quote:
“Everyone who calls, ‘Help, God!’ gets help.”
But how can people call for help if they don’t know who to trust? And how can they know who to trust if they haven’t heard of the One who can be trusted? And how can they hear if nobody tells them?
And how is anyone going to tell them, unless someone is sent to do it? That’s why Scripture exclaims, A sight to take your breath away! Grand processions of people telling all the good things of God!
Question is: Whom are you listening to? Whom are you hanging out with? Whom are you reading? What are they saying? Whom are you watching? What are they saying? Whose tweets are you following? Did you know that you are the average of the five people closest to you? What you hear about wealth, success, significance and greatness inevitably affects your Belief System. In fact what you hear on a consistent basis will generally form a strong belief system…and God knows this, that is why we Christians go for ‘fellowships’ and church services week in and out. Some people think that they can re-calibrate their belief systems instantly or miraculously. That doesn’t happen.
Others think that they can blame the government or their parents or teachers or someone else for their uncomfortable state they are in at the moment. That belief system will never give you a life signature…it will keep you there…since you have transferred the power to change from yourself to those you are blaming.
Still others think that they were never meant, or intended to live, love, matter and leave a legacy. That is so limiting but also so effective that they will never rise up above what they have chosen to believe.
The good news of course is that limiting beliefs can be replaced by empowering beliefs. We have talked elsewhere in this blog about the environment that you choose to keep. Does it hone your empowering belief system? Staying up all night flipping through the channels and watching Constant Negative News does not help your empowering beliefs…rather it strengthens the negative beliefs that you have kept.
Changing your belief System for wealth, success, greatness and significance is not the President’s prerogative, nor is it your wife’s! It is your responsibility. The Chinese Bamboo tree I am told is watered for four good years before it sprouts from the ground. That is just about the time you should take in cultivating empowering belief systems. Creating new and empowering belief systems is an absolute essential in designing a life of Legacy. You must dig in and pay the price of patience, relentlessness, focus and perseverance. The best time to plant a tree was like twenty years back…the next best time to have that tree planted is today.
There are two things you could do: Protect your mind or Feed Your Mind. Both are proactive activities. Over to you.