Be Brave Not Safe

Earl Nightingale, a pioneer in the field of personal development, shares a great analogy: the mind is like a fertile field.

That is, fertile soil doesn’t care if we plant poison ivy or vegetables. Both will grow (based on the seed).

The same goes for our mind. As a result, we should ask ourselves if we are planting positive thoughts and meaningful goals, or negative, defeating thoughts? Each will “bring forth” their kind.

Instead of letting our mind become a fertile field that is overrun by weeds, why not plant seeds that will bring forth the desired outcome: the life we’d like to realize?

We can only do this by choosing what goes into our mind.

Let’s start by letting no garbage in. Garbage is defined as anything that is not contributing to our quality of life or the achievement of our goals and dreams. And worse, may actually be undermining our progress towards getting there. That is not to say, for example, we shouldn’t have leisure time that may involve “selective” viewing of entertaining or useful content. To reinforce, “if” we are being selective, vs. sitting there glued to the TV, computer monitor, etc. as time passes us by.

You be the judge of this and how it applies to you.

The reality is that the majority of stuff produced by the media (TV, radio, print publications, online) is eye and/or ear candy intended to attract and monopolize our attention. We can easily become mesmerized, only to burn away many hours for which we could have been doing something else more productive and/or fun!

The first step in developing the mind is becoming completely confident in, and educated on, the above. To do that, you are encouraged to listen to Earl Nightingale’s short program – The Strangest Secret, available on YouTube, by clicking here.

From here, determine the areas of your mind and life you’d like to develop. Do you want to:

• Be more organized
• Improve your ability to get along with others
• Improve your ability to negotiate
• Improve your computer skills
• Better manage your finances
• Learn how to start or better manage a business
• Learn a new language, musical instrument, how to build a website, etc.

Bottom-line: There is a program for that. This could be in the form of a book, audio program, YouTube video, class at a local community college or high school. And, quite possibly an app for your iPhone.

In the quest to achieve Mind Like Water, it is important to continuously develop our mind (hone our skills) so that we are able to effectively take on new and increasing volumes of challenges and opportunities – effortlessly. The alternative is stagnation which ultimately results in us falling behind, and the stress that goes along with it.

Instead, let’s get and keep ourselves ahead of the pack simply by putting in a “little” effort every day on developing our mind with positive, constructive and uplifting input. By doing so we are grooming / preparing our mind for achieving the goals and dreams we seek.

All the best!