Winners and Losers

Recently a client sent me a book to read called “Secrets of the Millionaire Mind” And it is about pretty much what the title says, or is it? The author right away makes a clear distinction between how rich people think to how poor people think in regards to accumulating wealth. As I began nodding my head in agreement with pretty much everything in the book, a couple of things became quite clear. He was actually writing about “thinking strategies” And how many Blogs have you all read of mine that goes on and on about thinking strategies? What also became obvious from my perspective as a coach was that instead of distinguishing between rich and poor all his conclusions would have been just as viable if you labelled the differences in thought strategy as the difference between “winners” and “losers”

It has been my joyous and painful experience as a coach and as a person to know that the riches of life boil down to thought patterns and thinking strategies. The author of Secrets of the Millionaire Mind, T. Harv Eker, made me realize that no matter what field we are discussing, achieving millionaire status or trying to better yourself in Fitness, “thought”, becomes the determining factor not only of success and achievement, but of happiness and joy as well. There are indeed many kinds of wealth. Money can exist without joy, success can exist without harmony. As I have always said the wealthiest people I know aren’t necessarily those who have the most, but instead are those that “want the least” I would like to explore some of Eker’s conclusions here below. This will more than likely be a two or three part Blog. I am going to separate loser thinking from winner thinking. If this seems to offend any of you, then I guess you will know by the end what kind of thinker you are being should that be so. As usual, some of you will get it, most of you will not.

I think one of the best places for me to start is with a quote of Eker’s similar to a lot of what I have been saying in previous Blogs and on my Forums:

“Your mind is the greatest soap opera script writer in history. It makes up incredible stories, usually based in dramas and disasters of things that never happened and probably never will. Mark Twain said it best, I’ve had thousands of problems in my life, most of which never actually happened” (Eker p174)

If I had a dime for every time one of my clients made mountains out of molehills with their successes or their challenges I would be a very rich man. I don’t know what it is about the nature of people that compels them toward the overly dramatic but I do know this; the ones that never learn from this and keep playing the drama card in their minds, are the ones whose lives never go anywhere.

Loser thinking if you will.

Training and managing your own mind is the most important skill you could ever own in terms of both happiness and success. As Eker says, “If your mind is not programmed (through self talk) for success then nothing you learn, nothing you know, and nothing you do will make much difference” The mind is your biggest obstacle to success and/or happiness. It all boils down to what Eker refers to as the Process of Manifestation: thoughts lead to feelings, feelings lead to actions, actions lead to results; and of course inaction is a form of action isn’t it? This is all about dreamers vs. doers, and the question of where thoughts come from, and how do they manifest? Are you in control of your thoughts, or do they control you? How and why do you begin to think the thoughts that enter your mind?

What if it is really all just a matter of “changing your mind?” I think and believe it truly is. Your outer world is a reflection of your inner world, or to put it another way, your inner life of self talk and thought will manifest and create your outer life; struggle, unhappiness, pain, drama, trust, friendship, sincerity, joy are all reflections of you that begin with the way you think. So is your basic philosophy one that is “I create my world” or is it more like “Life happens to me” and I react or respond to it? The former is an empowering road to achievement; the latter is the loser’s path of thought.

The problem for many is that their thought process is based on “past programming” The mind is a tricky thing. A lot of people advise that in order to change you need to think new and different thoughts. But as Eker says, it may just be a matter of re-thinking old thinking patterns. It’s not necessarily about learning new thinking strategies, but instead it’s about letting go of old ones that interfere or sabotage thought process toward advancement. As Eker says “It’s often about “unlearning” what we think we know. Or “what we know, that just ain’t so!” Past ways of thinking are sure to produce past ways of acting and therefore past results, no matter what new knowledge you just learned. This is what marketing hucksters don’t want you to know in regards to their potions, lotions, tactics, and double talk.

Success is a frame of mind, achievement is a frame of mind, joy is a frame of mind, wealth is a frame of mind. Are you getting it? These things are results, not causes. Read that again 50 times. Your outer world is a reflection of your inner world. Sometimes the best thing anyone can do is “unlearn” their thinking and coping strategies. Winners focus on what they want. Losers focus on what they don’t want. How many times has a female client joined up with me that has binge eating problems. The ones that always fail are the ones whose thought patterns go along the same lines as “I don’t want to be out of control any more with food, I don’t want to be fat; I don’t want to hate myself anymore” This is loser thinking because it is based on what someone doesn’t want, rather than focusing on something positive that they do seek or want.

As I discussed in previous Blogs, what you focus on expands. Focus on obstacles and problems and you will manifest more of them. Focus on possibilities and opportunities and you will manifest those instead. Some loser mentalities just “need” to have problems to solve. Even inane and trite ones. Why? Because it keeps them locked in to the same comfortable albeit counterproductive thinking strategies. “Problem solving” mentality is just a way to keep the loser mentality active with out threatening it with change.

Remember my “who are you being Blog?” Winners commit to “Being”: Losers commit to “Wanting”: Look at people, even my example above and you will notice that “wanting” seldom leads to having but instead just leads to more wanting, or wanting more intensely. Choosing, as in choosing “Being” is powerful stuff, and is much stronger as a constant motivational tool. Early on in my career I would struggle with dieting because I had thoughts of “can’t have” and thought in terms of denial. Once I noticed my thought patterns I had a self heart to heart. I changed to be about being and knowing I always have a choice, and choice is strong. Now I know I can eat junk, probably more often than I do and even have it not affect me much. But since I know I am empowered by choice, I don’t need to, and choose never to do that. I don’t “want” for leanness and fitness. I am “being” lean and fit. I see this also with clients. Often in the off season I will tell them I am not sending you a diet. Unconsciously they end up “choosing” to eat well anyway, based on fear of letting loose. (Fear is another topic I’ll get to) But come contest time they end up sabotaging themselves over and over. Why? Because they no longer see “choice” and their empowerment is now gone.

This is one reason I detest when people tell me “they need a show” in order to stick to a regimen. That is loser thinking. It means you will never have that which you “want” unless it is under artificial pretences. This is not “empowering” but dis-empowering. It is how loser’s think. Loser’s often think “if I do this thing then I will be winner; I will have achieved my status” This is very common but loser thinking all the same. I used to say in my seminars, way back when; I used to know guys that would rush to go on anabolics thinking that if they just got bigger and got a better body then they would garner more respect. I saw it all the time. And my observations were always the same. If you were a jerk at 180 lbs you end up being just a bigger more visible jerk at 220 lbs. That kind of thinking is based on “other oriented” thought. It’s thought that presumes the importance of everyone else in order to validate yourself. This is loser thinking. Recently there was a client learning MET training that didn’t want to do MB slams because it makes so much noise and “people will look” This is loser mentality. Do you want results, or do you want validation? To put "other directed" importance in your mind is to never allow yourself to do or be first in importance because of what people might say or think or how they may respond. In two or three years when everyone is doing MB slams that same person will want to do them, because it will fit in to the environment. Thus, loser thinking means always being a slave to the prevailing perception around you.

So thinking if you “win that show” you will now be a winner is faulty thought at its best. It’s a losing proposition based on a loser mentality. I’ve heard many champions say to me in the past, bodybuilding is all I am good at. I’ve failed at everything else I’ve ever done. So even with victory they saddle themselves with old ways of thinking that secure for them a losing thought process long term. I’ve seen many physically genetically gifted athletes win a high level contest only to lose themselves. I mean all the way lose themselves, becoming addicted to strong street drugs and ending up as street people. Why? Because genetics can be as much from the neck up as it is from the neck down.

Conversely what winners in thought know is that if I become a winner, as a person, I can do anything, win at anything, regardless of outcome and reinforce my winning spirit. What winners and good coaches know is that winning is person oriented, not event oriented. Events are merely the vehicles to self expression. Therefore it becomes about the thought process regarding the undertaking itself. This is why trainers are seldom good coaches. They aren’t person oriented in real terms. And they approach guidance from a position of their needs rather than the real needs of a client. So what is your thought process regarding competing?

Are you approaching it from a position of need and a loser mentality or are you approaching it from an empowered position as a measure of yourself against and reflective in challenge. As Eker points out winner’s can never lose from this vantage point. Donald Trump went bankrupt at least once, and then became a billionaire again. Why? Because his thoughts were wired for billions, not millions and not in loser mentalities of “events” Most people would never recover from a bankruptcy. It’s a comfortable place to live as a victim. Conversely, look at Mike Tyson. He had a ton of genetic athletic talent. And he won beyond "events" to holding what was once the most coveted prize in all of sport. So how did his life become such a mess, and his identity nothing more than a punch line of a joke? Thought process. It's never about "winning" an event or a material thing. Real triumph is about "being" a winner.

The problem then is one of the manifestation of thoughts and how we “tweak them” before we act on them to serve our own unconscious world view. Many just don’t realize that their thoughts are being run by past programming. We all internalize through our life our world view and what we think, and how we think.
Unless we manifest the power of awareness we can be a slave to that past programming for a lifetime. Therefore the question begs, who are you? vs. who did you learn to be? Most people cannot answer the first question, but subconsciously answer the second question instead. Remember as Eker points out, one of the most important things in life may be to “unlearn, what we know that just ain’t so!” This can be tough when addressing an overall world view. But once people pay attention to the process of thought, then awareness begins and so can the process of change.

Too often people let a bad situation or a poor choice in the past, a bad relationship, or parental influence, become the one and only thing that defines their world view for life. Remember my previous example of several champion bodybuilders who describe themselves to me as “failures” at everything else. Failure is their defining thought. Even in the face of contradictory evidence of being “champions” in bodybuilding. This is self-defining based on past programming.

It’s time for the loser mentality to wake up! If this is you, (and I will confess many aspects of this were me at one time.) then heed this message: Your world view which forms your thought processes and your “feelings” about your thoughts, is exactly like computer programming.

Exactly!

What we need to realize is that all this past programming is computer “software” not “hardware” This means it can be changed. May be it is time to do a memory dump of past thought programming software, and all its accumulated viruses, and instead replace it with a totally new operating system, your own hard drive of thought and outlook. You are not the expression of your past unless you keep reinforcing that thought process. You do not have to be based in past thought of who you think you are, or who some one said you were years ago. But isn’t it funny how we revert to that when it comes up? Adult children will often “become” that child identity around the presence of their parents if they don’t develop an awareness consciousness. This is especially dangerous to those who grew up in dysfunctional family systems.

So maybe it is time to make a change for yourself. Define for you, yourself, Who am I? People always seem to be counter intuitive regarding this, and that works against them. I will share a story with you regarding that. When I first started getting a lot of media attention from the industry way back when; I was naïve as to people’s potential response to me. I remember when an in-depth article about me came out in one of the magazines. I was happy because it was more of a “who is Scott Abel” kind of thing, rather than the typical coverage of my success or my theories etc. This pleased me at first because there was this “anti” Scott Abel breeze in the air. I assumed it was because people just didn’t understand me, so this article would clear the air about me, because it was so well written. That was one of my best lessons ever about myself and about people.

What happened was the article came out, and everyone read it right? But the interesting thing was the response. For people that liked me, the article reinforced exactly what they like about me and why they like me. For people that didn’t like me, the article reinforced to them exactly why they didn’t like me and what they didn’t like about me. How could this be? They were all reading the exact same words. I realized right then, that the article or any article would never really reflect “me” in real terms. I also learned that people have a powerful filter of thought that will filter perception toward their own world view. Fast forward to the new age with the internet and chat rooms, Forums boards, and all other vehicles for people to express opinion. The bottom line is that most people that express an opinion of me positive or negative in these places, don’t even know me. Their opinion is based on their perception only. It’s not based on me or my life. The point is that people’s attitudes and perceptions, even in regard to me, reflect THEIR life, not my life. So why would I ever let that influence my own world view. It remains to date one of my most valuable lessons.

I sit and watch and deal with people daily whose sole existence is one of a need for attention and/or validation. When these become driving forces as exists in such subcultures as bodybuilding, this is a dangerous loser mentality. There are many negative driving forces of thought and I will address them in the next Blog. The point is the necessity to change driving forces that may be confusing. Chasing attention, acceptance and/or validation is often confused with love and respect. This is a slippery slope that not only leads to disappointment but can lead to hurt as well, and then the constant “want” of validation, so entrenched in the loser mentality.
Your comfort zone of thought will become your own validation process, and because we manifest thoughts and feeling (inner world to outer world) this can be a lifelong process of personal futility. Are you being run by “past programming”?

Develop an awareness consciousness that allows you to live each day as who you want to be today. Develop an awareness consciousness that allows you to discover and rediscover yourself every day as well, not reflected through the perceptions of others, but from your own heart and mind. Remember as Eker points out, “consciousness is observing your thoughts and actions so as to operate from a position of true choice in the present” Are you ready to be a winner mentality?

Winning is always about developing in an ongoing never ending pursuit of self. Being a winner is about becoming a new person in character and mind, stronger, more purposeful. It’s about being an ongoing project of journey not destination. It’s about designing a life, not making a living. If your outer world is a reflection of your inner world then know that you are the “roots” of all that is in your life. Your results are your “fruits”

How is that looking to you right now?

Maybe you need to replant these roots in a different spot of thinking process, so as to shed new sunlight on the roots, to allow them to grow. Water the roots with awareness consciousness as well as new light, and the fruits of your roots, will be a never ending crop of self improvement, defined by you and for you. That is a winning mentality of daring, of self, and of awareness; the result of which is contentment and joy and a feeling of true abundance. Winners live in a world of abundance no matter what they have or don’t have. Losers live in a world of limitations, also no matter what they have or don’t have.

It’s just most unfortunate that people believe what they need, rather than believing in what they truly know.

I will continue the winner/loser dichotomy in my next Blog. Till then seek awareness. I welcome your comments in my Forums section.