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Joseph Riggio

Foolish Wisdom … Making The World Go ‘Round …

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“Foolish wisdom is about dealing with the world in ways you have not before …”

 

Challenge is …
Most folks can’t get out of their own way

What I mean by “most folks can’t get out of their own way” is that they lead with their limitations. Of course, they don’t mean to … heck, they don’t even know their doing it 90-plus % of the time … but they do nonetheless.

The reason most folks lead with their limitations can be boiled down to just a few things:

  • Their limitations are intertwined with their “success formula” – i.e.: how they know to create the successes they do

  • They perceive the world from a limited point of view that’s relatively fixed and unchanging, i.e.: myopic perception

  • What they’ve experienced is what they think they’ll always experience, i.e.: they project their past into their future

  • The education they’ve had defines the world for them as they know it, i.e.: they haven’t learned to use their senses

  • Reality as they know it to be has a singular form that’s unchanging, i.e.: they seldom if ever challenge their beliefs

  • Truth/Knowledge/Learning … whatever … all exist “out there” beyond them, i.e.: expertise is external to them

I’m sure I could extend the list, but why? If you don’t get the pattern from what I’ve included above, more items in the list isn’t going to make it any clearer for you. In fact I could probably make it just one list item and cover the whole gambit …

  • Only socially validated and reinforced values are acceptable to them, i.e.: what they know instinctively and intuitively is put aside when they are confronted by others who demand socially acceptable “proof” … they are externally organized and other-referencing, versus internally organized and self-referencing

Now there’s nothing wrong with being externally organized and other-referencing per se … BUT it’s a function of interplay between context and content … and timing. When you know you don’t know, and you seek external input, from experts or otherwise, that’s wise … BUT, when you have gathered the information and knowledge you need the ultimate decision about what it means always remains personal … ONLY YOU CAN DECIDE WHAT’S TRUE FOR YOU.

This may seem obvious and self-evident, and to a very great extent it should be and is so. The challenge for most people is clear however …

SELF-DOUBT

FWIW I’m a big fan of doubt … until I don’t. To quote my own mentor, Roye Fraser …

“When in doubt don’t.” 

What Roye taught was that doubt meant, “not enough information” – simply meaning, you need to gather more information than you have, so you can remove the doubt. So until you become settled within yourself don’t take any action you don’t need to take before you need to take it.

The key in that statement is: “until you become settled within yourself don’t take any action you don’t need to take” …

Yet, the deep challenge for most people is they’ve never learned how to know when they are settled within themselves, so they continue to look for and count on external information and validation, i.e.: social proof.

 

What to do about it …
(escaping the pattern of leading with your limitations)

This is in a very large part why I’ve shifted the presentation of what I’m doing around to focus on the idea of “Foolish Wisdom” … i.e. dealing with the world in ways you have not before (that will make you more successful). 

“Foolish Wisdom” is the wisdom of the Fool

This seems so very self-evident, yet most folks have forgotten who or what the Fool truly represents.

The Fool doesn’t represent stupidity, mental limitation, sensory inhibition or even immaturity as some seem to think.

The Fool represents the innate, naive, childlike wisdom that perceives with clarity and without distortion what is happening around them. 

The Fool is NOT childish, but childlike … a distinct difference. The Fool first perceives and then acts, without prejudice. When you get that last statement you’ll get how profound the position of the Fool truly is … beyond where some vast majority of people can or do act from themselves.

Let’s step back for a moment to an earlier part of this post. Take a look at these four bullet points again in relation to the statement about who the Fool perceives and acts:

  • They perceive the world from a limited point of view that’s relatively fixed and unchanging, i.e.: myopic perception

  • What they’ve experienced is what they think they’ll always experience, i.e.: they project their past into their future

  • The education they’ve had defines the world for them as they know it, i.e.: they haven’t learned to use their senses

  • Reality as they know it to be has a singular form that’s unchanging, i.e.: they seldom if ever challenge their beliefs

You can see that if these bullet points are accurate about how most people operate, it’s almost diametrically opposed to how the Fool operates. The typical person’s operating position is mired in prejudice, based on what they have been taught, what they’ve experienced and what they already believe. As it says, “they project their past into their future” … and this applies to how they judge what they haven’t experienced or learned about yet.

In working with some of the largest, most progressive and most well-funded businesses in the world, I’ve had the opportunity to counsel the senior most leaders of those organizations regarding decisions they needed or wanted to make (and sometimes about the ramifications of decisions they’ve already made). I’ve also spent thousands of hours in rooms with these same folks doing developmental training and facilitation work with them.

What I’ve found again and again is that these bright, extremely well educated, accomplished and successful individuals sometimes don’t know their rectum from a hole in the ground when it comes to making good decisions, taking meaningful action and/or leading others to do the same!

The “standard path” that many senior business leaders take (and you can include most entrepreneurs, business owners and professionals in this group too) … is to use past performance to determine the future direction and action they should, will and do implement. STUPID! STUPID!! STUPID!!! Not only do they do this in their organizations as leaders … often based on “best business practice” bullshit … they also do it in their personal lives. STUPID! STUPID!! STUPID!!! (I can’t say or emphasize this enough regarding this ridiculous pattern of thinking and behavior.)

Okay, let’s back off a minute … calm down and cool off, shall we?

Why would anyone do this if it were such a stupid thing to do?

Three profoundly powerful reasons:

  1. Because it’s embedded in their success strategy

  2. Because they’ve learned that this is the way to do things

  3. Because it’s socially acceptable to do it this way 

  4. And, when they do they get massive CYA (Cover Your Ass) benefits

Simply put, they don’t know any better … so they do what they know.

On the other hand, the Fool always knows that they don’t know … so they can’t do (act on) what they don’t know … instead the Fool acts “in time” based on real data/information in the system as it emerges, i.e.: their perception, decision-making and action strategy is always emergent.

 

Where to go (I’m going …) from here …

I’ve learned a tremendous amount of how to help people make transformational change in the last two plus decades of doing the work I do … and most of it revolves around helping them to unwind bad learning.

The starting point of real change is the ability to accept that what you’re doing now, and the way you’re doing it doesn’t work … or at least doesn’t work as well as it could. You’d have to be willing to try what you haven’t tried before … and YOU can’t do that … literally!!!

YOU can’t do what you haven’t done/tried before, because YOU won’t even be able to recognize it if it bit you on your arse!!!

You can literally only see, hear, feel, taste and smell what you are already accustomed to … until the doors of perception you operate from are opened further than they are now …

YOU CAN’T DO THIS YOURSELF!!! …
It must be done from outside of YOURSELF

There are pretty much two ways to get there … i.e.: outside of yourself:

 

  1. You can step aside from what you now know and believe … putting all your learning, experience and beliefs aside

     

    -or- 

  2. You can allow someone who has been where you haven’t been perceptually to open the doors of perception for you

 

This is the work I’ve now committed myself to doing, i.e.: working with clients to provide them with Foolish Wisdom … pointing to the emergent present with enough clarity, humor and provocation so that they can see, hear, feel, taste and smell it for themselves. 

In this regard I see myself as the “Wise Fool” leading the way by proving that I don’t know … claiming to neither possess nor offer anything except the most valuable thing of all for the truly wise … NOTHING.

Hell, that must be a claim you can believe …

“When you come to me I promise you I’ll do my best to neither have nor give you anything, and if we’re successful you’ll leave with NOTHING for yourself.” 

There’s really only one good reason to pursue Foolish Wisdom for yourself …

Because you want to make better decisions and take more meaningful action in your life.

By making a commitment to become a Wise Fool yourself –

  • you’ll become a better leader …

  • you’ll experience life more fully …

  • you’ll transcend the limitations that you now encounter repeatedly …

  • you’ll find a way to achieve what you haven’t before …

  • you’ll transform your relationships – with your spouse/lover, children, parents, friends, employer, employees, co-workers – EVERYONE …

you’ll begin …

Having the experience of YOUR life!
(both on your own and with others)

Foolishly yours,

 

Joseph Riggio, Wise Fool and Provocateur Extraordinaire

Princeton, NJ

 

PS – Soon enough I’ll be announcing my workshops for 2013 … in the meantime you can still register to attend the MythoMania program here in NJ on Nov 29 and 30, Thursday and Friday … and it’s almost FREE, my gift to the MythoSelf community each year …

 

MythoMania 2012 Register NOW

 

 

Is The Future Of The Universe Uncertain?

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CAUTION: Please don’t read my musings on the nature of the Universe, Reality and How To Live Your Life Well … unless you already know me or it’s just gonna piss you off …

 

I’ve been exploring the concept of teleology for years. That the future “pulls” the present towards it forms the basis of teleological consideration. Or maybe it would be better put to say that the present contains the future that draws it forward within it.

Understanding that the teleological consideration differs from the idea of historical precedent driving the system forward  resides at the core of the consideration I’ve been exploring. In other words there are two primary explanations that are used to explain why the system evolves/unfolds as it does:

  1. The system is deterministic and like a billiard table the events that have been set in motion create effects in the system that continue driving the system forward until all the energy in the system is used and the system runs down in entropic ruin.

  2. The system is teleological and is heading to an end point that is given and pull the system forward in a particular direction in an ongoing way such that it cannot but manifest the form that is intended by the system in the same way that a seed cannot but produce the plant it contains.

I don’t actually believe in either explanation myself, and at the same time I am much more a fan of the latter in terms of the way I choose to organize my own personal experience on a pragmatic level. However …

I don’t believe the system even exists as is popularly expressed or experienced within the current paradigms … e.g.: religious, scientific, social, etc.

My personal experience is that the evolution/unfolding of the Universe is simultaneously unknown and complete, i.e.: the Universe is neither evolving or unfolding … and that our experience of it in ordinary terms is simply a reflection of a source experience that goes beyond anything comprehensible within the construct of a material Universe operating within the boundaries of physical laws (even at the quantum level), and/or constrained by space and or time.

The closet description I get of this comes from the work of quantum physicist David Bohm, and his work “Wholeness and the Implicate Order” where he poses that Information not Matter or Energy forms the essential structure of the Universe.

So the question, “Is The Future Of The Universe Uncertain?” becomes an essential, or “deep,” question. From this question we can begin to uncover what I refer to as what is “real” – the essence of what you can count on to be true based on your own self-verification alone.  Answering a “deep” question becomes important only if you want to become free in the sense of becoming a fully realized adult human being, fully developed and mature in your own right

When you get beyond the childish illusion that life as you know it is “happening out there” somewhere, being able to self-determine your experience becomes the primary objective. It forms the entire basis for having your own life versus the one imposed upon you from birth. This is what I refer to when I use the words “free,” “freedom,” or “liberation” in the context of living  your life.

We are taught two conflicting ideas that by the time most folks are in young adulthood trap them, A) that we are self-determining, i.e.: we possess free will, and B) that the Universe is deterministic and therefore our destiny is out of our hands, i.e.: we are the product of our ancestry, environment and personal history and trapped to live out our lives within those boundaries. In some cases there is a belief in a G-d or gods that also play into the equations tilting the deterministic trajectory of our lives one way or another. So we lose twice, A) we’re responsible for everything we do and must suffer the consequences therein, and B) we have no real control over our lives and therefore must accept our fate.

Yet what if both scenarios are simply incorrect, i.e.: the result of wrong thinking perpetuated by millennia of wrong thinking, deepened by theologians, philosophers and scientists ad infinitum???

What if everything we experience is simply subjective hallucination, phenomenological projection, imagination … what if our entire lives are just what we make up about them?

 

What if David Bohm is right, and the Universe is structured on Information and not Matter or Energy? What would that mean to living your life out as you know it?

Well this has been part of the essential quest I’ve been on for two and half decades. I’ve answered it fully for myself … and I’m what you can call both self-realized and self-satisfied, but I’ve continued seeking the means to articulate the premise I’ve been living in the work I do, including my efforts at writing about it … like here in Blognostra.

It continues to intrigue me that some folks want to know what the benefit of becoming self-realized and self-satified as a fully adult human being, i.e.: attaining fully maturity and the realization of our potential as human beings, is … and the answer continually comes up NOTHING … not a darn thing, other than the reward of being an adult human being.

 

The reward of being an adult human being of course is that you’ve stopped living the lie, the illusion … you’ve taken over your life, and you can begin to have the experience of living it … YOUR LIFE!

 

This was enough for me to trash everything I thought I had when I began this journey, including trashing all the beliefs I had about what made being in the journey worthwhile, e.g.: fame, fortune, relationships … and I replaced those beliefs with a burning desire to become free. By “burning desire” I mean an internal fire that consumed me as I knew myself to be then … someone I long ago stopped being.

What I now know is that the future of the Universe is meaningless, largely because what we think of as “the Universe” doesn’t exist as we think of it … “IT” merely is and isn’t becoming anything it isn’t already … it’s done, and so are we … from the moment we are conceived.

I had to get there, to the conclusion above, after many years of burning away all the beliefs that had become stacked and layered and intertwined about the “real” nature of the Universe as a physical, energetic experience held in a space-time continuum, quantum or otherwise.

In getting there I had to burn away all the illusions I had about who I was … who I am … who I could … would … will be/become … and get that I am done, as done as the Universe already is done. I could make it simple or trite, depending on your point of view, by saying we are literally dying from the moment we are born, but that wouldn’t capture the truth of that simple statement within the paradigm of denial most people are living from today.

A bit less trite would be the more direct comment that life is meaningless … utterly, dismally meaningless … but, despite the truth of that statement, saying it that way would engender despair in many of my readers and prevent them from reading on to the deeper message I want to convey.

From where I stand today, the realization that life is meaningless is also meaningless … and that amuses me to no end. I get who I am … what I am … the singularity that is evident when you take but the time to look … and ask the questions that lead to the irreconcilable truth … the truth of what is real when there is nothing left to consider and you’ve reached in inevitable end.

So then,

 

After you’ve reached the end, decided to do the work required to grow up, toss aside the standard bullshit that surrounds 99% of what most folks consider ‘truth’ or ‘the way it is’ what they consider ‘real’ … and you come to the actual realization that no matter what you do you’re already dying and when it’s done it won’t matter a scat … you can begin to consider what to do with whatever time you’ve got left.

 

This is when it get’s interesting … and a teleological proposition comes in handy …

But let’s save that for another time, eh?

 

Joseph Riggio, Wise Fool – Provocateur Extraordinaire

Copenhagen, Denmark

 

PS – HEY … you wanna really be provoked … and maybe gain the life you’ve been missing?

Come to MythoMania 2012 at the end of the month in Princeton, NJ … register here:

MythoMania 2012 Register NOW

Two days with me … a few MythoSelf pros … food, fun and lots of naked romping in the woods

(NOTE: Just kidding about the naked romping in the woods part … unless you find yourself in the mood to organize that outing yourself after hours … who knows … MythoMania has been known to create more and few ‘unexpected’ outcomes …)

Keep Your Friends Close … and Your Enemies Closer

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I’m about to make a bunch of new enemies in the “Spiritual” universe … as well as a few others out there in the New Age/NLP/Self-Help universes as well!

I’ve already got plenty of old enemies; people who cast me in the light of their need for me to be who they need me to be … e.g.: evil, stupid, corrupt, arrogant … whatever. Those enemies I can deal with, no problem. Those enemies are familiar … both as known entities and by type. Some of them even read this blog regularly.

The new enemies I’m referring to are those who will be more bent out of shape than usual by where I’m heading. Not that where I’m heading is new territory, just that I’ll be laying it out more directly than ever. These are folks who want a few things to remain status quo …

  • Their own sense of status and respectability

  • The consensus reality they live in remaining constant

  • The ideas they hold as sacred untouched, e.g.: love, light, peace, happiness and the overall goodness of the human condition … 

Type 1:

You know Type 1 … they’re ones who wander the world preaching the perfection of the Universe as long as things are going well for them … and simultaneously decrying the evil of the political party they disagree with, the starving children here or there, the women who’s basic human rights are being stomped on by one evil regime or another … all while chanting … “It’s all perfection … perfection … perfection” out loud … and “Except who and what I disagree with …” under their breath.

These folks are bliss vampires. They want to feel good all the time … no conflict, no discomfort, no disagreement (unless they initiate it … and then without any pushback from anyone else) … these folks think happiness is the bomb, the ultimate, nirvana … they’ll follow anyone, any process, any method … as long as they’re promised it will lead to peace on earth, a new age blossoming and total bliss if they stay the course, all without having to really struggle or think for themselves. Their mantra … “My master/teacher/guru says …” 

Type 2:

Type 2 is the opposite end of the spectrum … they want everything under the sun that they can consume … you know all the material goodies possible. Heck they’re willing to do whatever it takes … as long as it pays. They have bought totally into the current social paradigm, i.e.: do what it takes to make money … get rich, live in comfort, become wealthy … it’s all about quality of life and lifestyle … you know somewhere between the “Four-Hour Week” and “The Apprentice” The Type 2 folks often find themselves getting heaps of praise for their achievements … they build businesses, employ people, demonstrate what the lifestyle of the rich and famous looks like to everyone else.

You have to wonder though, if the Type 2s really have so much what drives them to want even more … when is enough, enough? There are some folks in this group who are still “up and coming” … they haven’t made it yet, but they aspire to the success they perceive is present once they achieve fame and riches. These people are always looking for the next golden ring, the next thing to achieve, the next mountain to climb … they often find themselves dead long before their time running as fast as they can without getting anywhere, and leaving everyone and everything they truly love behind. Their mantra is … PROGRESS AT ALL COSTS, THE LOVE IN MY LIFE … OR EVEN LIFE ITSELF!

Type 3:

There’s a Type 3 that deserves honorable mention as well … the combination of the Type 1 and Type 2 … these folks who want to be spiritually AND materially wealthy … AND believe that they don’t have to sacrifice anything in their lives to have it all … These folks have fallen as deeply in love with Maya’s illusions as possible. Of course they also know in their heart of hearts that everyone else is living the delusion … that no one gets it … how wonderful life can be when you’re living the dream. Their mantra … No Pain, All Gain!

 

Spaciousness …

Here’s the primary challenge I present to these folks, in all three categories and others I could have referenced …

I Promise Them Nothing!

I totally understand how this is so underwhelming to some … and to others the epitome of what they don’t want … what they’ve avoided their entire lives … i.e.: looking within and finding themselves lacking.

Now, here’s the secret they’re missing …

“No One Is Ever Lacking Anything.”

It’s not that they have all they need, or that they don’t need anything … the deeper secret is that there’s nothing to find … NOTHING! But since the moment they were born they’ve been led to believe that there’s something to had … and IT’S OUT THERE SOMEWHERE. So they set off to find it … and everyone around them taught them how to seek and continued to reinforce their seeking “IT” … but here they are, still not  having found “IT.”

Most folks are limited by the idea that something is missing and has to be found “out there”  …
i.e.: they keep seeking and never finding.

The solution of course is letting go of everything you have been taught to believe it … everything you believe is true or real as you know it today. It’s not adding in anything new, start by removing all the untruth and unreal so you can begin anew from what is true and real. This upends virtually everything you’ve heard or read from just about every master/teacher/guru or whomever out there. They’re all selling the idea you need something they have … learning, skills, whatever. I’m not selling anything, but the idea that to move forward you have to begin by removing what you already have, beginning with your beliefs … and you don’t need me or anyone else to do that, the journey I’m suggesting is singularly personal and ultimately utterly up to you and you alone.

The key to moving forward begins with releasing your beliefs, starting with the ones nearest to the surface … and then moving onto those that are most deeply held. Ultimately you’ll find the process leads you to question everything … including your relationship to everything else, who you are … and what if anything is real in a way you can count on. It begins with the process of undermining your most closely held and cherished beliefs, everything you now believe you know.

You’ve been led to believe that you have you’re own thoughts … thoughts that are in fact what you’ve been taught and told to believe before you could think for yourself. This process then continued and continues with all the masters, teachers and gurus who want you under their spell, and they have an ace up their sleeve … they’ll tell you just what you want to hear, e.g.:

  • “You can have everything you want … and as long as you believe it, it will be yours.”

  • “There’s no reason you have to give up being successful to be spiritual, or visa-versa.”

  • “Unlimited riches and wealth are yours as long as you’re willing to work for them.”

  • “You can do what you love and make all the money you desire too.”

  • “You were born to be happy and successful, and you deserve it because you’re you.”

  • “The secret to lifelong happiness and bliss is simply residing in the light and love.”

  • “Once you put the right system in place lifelong wealth is yours for the asking.”

  • “When you access your true self and tell your story everything you ever wanted will come to you.”

  • “Over millennia the world’s greatest masters, teachers and gurus have known the secrets of enlightenment and if you’ll follow their system you can become enlightened too.”

Let me help you understand all these statements you might have come across or may come across someday …

BULLSHIT!!!

This kind of stuff is complete and utter bullshit if you’re seeking the freedom to have the experience of your life.

When you begin the process I’m suggesting by asking the question, “Is this/that real?” … or “Can on count on this being true without question?” … and asking and answering these questions for yourself based on self-verification, NOT SOME EXTERNAL SOURCE OR ANOTHER … will lead you to the source experience, i.e.: what comes before you know anything based on external sources. 

There are better and worst ways to run the kind of process I’m suggesting, but if you run the process it will all lead to the same place … you’ll wind up with NOTHING. What you’ll have instead of the falsehoods and all the things those falsehoods suggest you need and want is a profound sense of spaciousness … i.e.: the space to perceive the world as it is and to be yourself in it. This is the difference between being sane and insane … and being sane in an insane world is both a blessing and curse.

The blessing is that you’ll be free to act in alignment with what’s real, instead of living in relation to the delusions and distortions most folks around you are living under … the illusions of Maya. These folks are what I referred to as insane in my book, “The State of Perfection, Your Hidden Code to Unleashing Personal Mastery” unable to anticipate the effect of their actions, because they are unable to perceive the world as it is:

“It’s only possible to be declared insane in relation to the declared definitions of normal. They are always determined by society-at-large, and the definitions of normal change significantly over time. One way to define sanity is in relation to insanity, e.g.: reverse the rules of sanity and you get insanity. If sanity is defined as ‘to be healthy in mind and body, and to be able to anticipate and appraise the effects of one’s actions’ – then a working definition of insanity could be stated as ‘to be unhealthy in mind and body, and to be unable to anticipate and appraise the effects of one’s actions.'”

Riggio, Joseph (2012-04-21). The State of Perfection: Your Hidden Code to Unleashing Personal Mastery (p. 8). IM Press, Inc.. Kindle Edition.

The curse is that since most of the world lives in a state of delusion, distortion and illusion they’ll perceive you as the one who’s insane. However, there’s no way an insane society, or anyone operating in alignment with such a society’s norms can declare anyone insane, in fact rejecting the norms of such a society is the only sane thing to do:

To recognize sanity or insanity in another requires sanity in one’s self. If the society-at-large is insane, e.g.: unhealthy in mind and body and unable to anticipate and appraise the effects of its actions, then how can it possibly declare it’s citizens insane? Only a sane society could reasonably claim the right to declare its citizens sane or insane. Therefore, while it may at first seem counter intuitive, “If society-at-large is insane, when a person rejects the insanity of that society, they must by default and definition be sane”. in context, is actually logically sound.”

Riggio, Joseph (2012-04-21). The State of Perfection: Your Hidden Code to Unleashing Personal Mastery (p. 8). IM Press, Inc.. Kindle Edition.

So you’re be confronted with a choice … to be insane and considered to be sane in an insane society … or to be sane but considered insane in an insane society. The only thing I’m offering here is the the second choice:

… to be sane but considered insane in an insane society.

Sanity means giving up identifying with anything that the insane society you’re a part of suggests is of value, including what seems obvious from within it … happiness, wealth, relationships … all of it. I’m sure you’re getting why I said “I’m about to make some new enemies …” now.

When you give up the insanity, i.e.: the beliefs imposed upon you by society-at-large, and your tendency to identify with them you begin to become less and less egoistic, and more and more ego-less … less associated and identified with “self” … you begin in this way to move beyond the limited sense of self you now operate from to a more unlimited position that transcends self … and self-interest.

Making this work requires you to employ a big “trick” in your favor … i.e.: not replacing the beliefs you give up with any new beliefs. Instead of replacing old beliefs with new beliefs the “trick’ requires you to remain open to not knowing, i.e.: not knowing anything … what you think is true or real (before you verify it for yourself) … what you think you want or need (before you verify it for yourself) … what you think others think or believe (because you can’t verify this at all). All that remains is …

SPACIOUSNESS …

Spaciousness is another way of referring to having nothing. Being spacious means being able to remain open to notice and explore whatever comes up, and responding in the moment based on what’s indicated by the signals in the system. This way of operating often means you won’t know where your going or what will happen when you do … just that you’re able to trust that what is, is what is … (the utter opposite of goal setting … another social favorite I personally despise … because when the criteria is having your own life it simply doesn’t work).

 

Foolish Wisdom, Inc.

Okay, enough for now, other than one last point …

All this is really an introduction to a new phase and revisioning in my public work … becoming even more direct and up front about the idea that I offer nothing … and that I’m damn proud of it too!

This isn’t anything new for folks who are familiar with me and my work. I’ll still do the stuff I’ve always done, just less of it … more simplified:

  1. Small group retreats where I’ll explore these ideas and how they apply to the unique place your in with regard to them … except they’ll be called “Foolish Wisdom Retreats” and I’ll be charging a minimum of less than $50/day for them based on the venue cost where they’re being held (Yes, you read that correctly, it’s not a typo … depending on the venue you could attend a two-day Foolish Wisdom Retreat with me for less than $100 USD total investment on your part!) … I intend to hold them in the U.S. on the East and West Coast, and in the U.K. next year … and maybe one or two in Asia as well.

  2. Private Work with individual clients remotely via telephone or the Internet, in person and with a limited access for business clients where there’s a deep match and fit … this work will be arranged individually and will be offered on a first come/first serve basis based on my availability, I also plan on continuing to run my yearly membership mentoring program, UA Sapphire Private Access – but with a radical revision of access to virtually everything I do.

  3. MythoSelf based skills training and a brand new program I’ve developed in association with the Society of NLP/Richard Bandler – the first and only Licensed NLP Consultant Certification  … I’ll be running two sessions of MythoSelf personal/professional development training next year, once in the U.S. spread out over the year and once in Europe as a twelve-day intensive, and I’ll run one NLP Consultant Certification (for anyone who already has an NLP Master Practitioner certification only) here in the U.S. – we’ll kick it off with a couple of sessions of the wildly successful and newly revised “Kick-Ass Consulting” program I delivered with John LaValle years ago …

That’s it! I’m cutting it all back to the essentials … so I can play the role I was born for … the Wise Fool and Provocateur Extraordinaire …

The new entity I’ve organized to offer all my live public programs is Foolish Wisdom, Inc. … so if you don’t hate me or what I’ve laid out here yet keep an eye out for what’s coming up in 2013 …

 

Looking forward to it …
Joseph Riggio, Wise Fool and Provocateur Extraordinaire

Princeton, NJ

 

P.S. – The offerings of Foolish Wisdom, Inc. are all about becoming a Wise Fool yourself. In that regard I’ll leave you with a few things to think about before I go:

  • Foolish wisdom is about dealing with the world in ways you have not before 

  • Foolish wisdom is based in reflection that leads to resolution

  • Wise fools treat life as less of a problem and more of a puzzle

  • The wise fool knows how to communicate with themselves and how to communicate with others 

PPS – If you haven’t made plans to be at this year’s MythoMania you still have time to do it now, for only $150 you’ll be immersed in the MythoSelf Process with me and some of the top MythoSelf Facilitators and Trainers in the world for two full days … AND I’M PROVIDING LUNCH and SNACKS & BEVERAGES … heck, you’ll be paying less than it costs me to invite you, now here’s the link you need to register:

Get the details … MythoMania 2013

Mirror, Mirror …

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We always see what we want to see, from inside who we think we are … until we don’t

 

I’ve been following the Lance Armstrong debacle since it began … in 2004. That’s when the sponsor of the Tour de France offered a $5 million dollar bonus to the winner, and immediately demanded that Lance Armstrong be charged with doping and forfeit the prize when he won the race. It’s a joke …

Not just the demand in 2004, but the entire fiasco of pursuing and charging Lance Armstrong with doping. Not because he didn’t do it … I don’t know for sure … and neither do you … but because it doesn’t matter!

Let me begin at the beginning for you … early morning today. I’m going to assume that you woke up, at some point went into your bathroom, or toilet, and looked into a mirror. Who looked back? Who did you see in the mirror? That’s the beginning … knowing who you are.

 

“I’m not afraid.” …

Of course this is ludicrous because almost no one knows who they are, not because they can’t …. because they won’t. This is the most terrifying thing you can possibly do, i.e.: confront the truth of who you are, experience the “real” you.

Think of Luke Skywalker and Yoda asking him if he was afraid to go into the tunnel to confront what was down there, and after Luke assures him he’s not telling him, “You will be … you will be” … that’s the reality of looking into the mirror and seeing who’s really looking back.

Don’t be afraid though, you’re unlikely to  ever confront that reality. Society has organized it to make sure it’s so unlikely that the vast majority of people on the planet, we’re talking 99+% will never even consider it.

You’ve been conditioned to accept “reality” as society has framed it for you, despite all the evidence to the contrary. Despite that fact that you are confronted daily by the insanity that the consensus reality you live in presents to you … war, famine, genocide, environmental decimation … the list could on, but that should suffice for my example … you continue to believe that what you’ve been told is “how it is” … and you go on believing

 

“Listen to your parents … be a good boy or girl … get a good education … listen to your teachers … be a good student … graduate from a good school … get a good job …be a good worker … find a good person … be a good partner … have a family … raise your family … be a good parent … take good care of your family and yourself … be a good wage earner … put money away for the future … be a good citizen … pay your taxes … be good … be good … fit in … fit in … fit in.

From “State of Perfection, Your Hidden Code to Unleashing Personal Mastery” by Joseph Riggio, I.M. Press 2011

 

I’ve been on about this idea for years, i.e.: you are conditioned to “see” the world through a set of beliefs that have nothing to do with what’s real. The beliefs you have are just that, i.e.: beliefs, NOT a representation of what’s real.

The beliefs you hold for the most part were inculcated into you before you ever began doing anything like “thinking for yourself” … and by the time you could “think for yourself” … it was too late.

Instead of thinking you simply repeat the patterned responses installed into you by others … first at home – parents, siblings, family … and then more at school – teachers, administrators, coaches, friends … and that continued with your “normal socializing” – news programming, conversational dialogue … and deepened when you entered the working world and were told by employers and coworkers how things worked … and you believed. You had no choice.

From your point of view the world as it was represented to you was/is more “real” than any evidence your senses present to you. For instance many of you “believe you have political views that are your own” … WHAT A F*$KING JOKE!!!

If you believe you are a Democrat, Republican, Liberatarian, Social Christian … whatever … you are just another puppet in the system, and you don’t even know the puppet master pulling the strings … BUT YOU BELIEVE DAMN IT … YOU BELIEVE!

  • “This time we’re going to see some real change!”

  • “This time my guy/gal is going to change things.”

  • “This time we’re going to take back government and restore … equality, peace, fairness … whatever …. to the people!” 

You’re going to pull the levers you’ve been trained and inculcated to believe you should. You’ll do this because you think you have an opinion, and that your guy/gal represents what you believe.

This time it’s going to be differnt … right? BULLSHIT!!! This time it’s going to be just the same … only more so. Until you wake up it’s always going to be someone else pulling the strings, and you’ll dutifully believe, because it’s all you know … despite that niggling sensation that something else is going on.

 

The F*$KING Joke Is On Us …

I don’t know if Lance Armstrong doped, but I know he’s the scapegoat for the system, for the society this time around. Hell, somebody’s got to take the rap … somebody’s got to be held accountable right?

There you are in your comfortable chair reading this thinking, “Well he’s a cheater, he doesn’t deserve that fame, money, praise!” Well here’s what I say to anyone who’s thinking that, “You self-righteous prick!” You’ll cheat on your taxes, maybe cheat on your wife or husband, take a little “extra time” off of work now and then, surf the Internet on company time (heck, maybe your surfing right now) … and you have the audacity to get all high and mighty with Lance???

Well as your throwing stones from the porch of your glass house let me share one more thing with you.

We live in an age which demands that we destroy our heroes.

And, like just about everything else that’s going on we’re doing it “legally” … letting the lawyers, judges and courts replace our sense of personal ethics and morality

The general rule is that if it’s not illegal it’s not wrong … you can do what you want as long as you aren’t breaking the law or getting caught. AND … if you happen to be wealthy enough or connected enough, nothing is against the law or wrong … you’ll walk. There are a thousand and one examples of this, if you’re really interested you don’t need to look too far, but start with the bankers … try a search for Jon Corrizine, former NJ Governor and before that Goldman Sacks guy.

In the meantime let’s get back to Lance Armstrong. He’s guilty as charged right? A doper, a cheat … and he deserves all that’s coming to him, right???

Well here’s a bit more from the record of the sport of cycling …

 

“His ultimate legacy most likely is out of our hands. Fans who may not yet be alive will decide who he was. To us, today, Eddy Merckx is the greatest cyclist who ever lived, not a fraud who tested positive for a stimulant while leading the 1969 Giro d’Italia and had his 1973 Giro di Lombardia win stripped for the same. Joop Zoetemelk is the hardman who started and finished 16 Tours—a record—and won one. He’s not a reprobate who was caught doping at the 1979 Tour, received a paltry penalty of a 10-minute time addition, and maintained his second-place podium spot. Jacques Anquetil is the five-time Tour winner who in 1961 took the yellow jersey on Stage 1 and wore it all the way to Paris, not a boastful cheater who said, during a French television interview, “Leave me in peace—everybody takes dope.” And Fausto Coppi is il campionissimo, the champion of champions, not an admitted doper who said on Italian television that he only took drugs when necessary—”which is nearly always.”

 

We live in a different age, one that may not allow the forgiveness of Lance Armstrong, that may hold him to be the creator rather than the product of the era he reigned over. We might even judge this champion’s cheating and lying too vile to permit the remembrance of the part of him that, even now, convinced that he doped to win the Tour, I can’t stop being a fan of: the plain fact that he was, as even his bitter enemy Floyd Landis told me when we spoke last year, “a badass on a bike.”

Excerpt from: “Lance Armstrong’s Endgame” Bill Strickland, Bicycling Magazine

 

 

Like I said, “We live in an age which demands we destroy our heroes.”

We can’t allow anyone to rise above the mediocrity that we’ve been trained to become a part of ourselves. It won’t work if some folks are allowed to be “better than others” … even if by dint of hard, relentless work and talent. The corporate hegemony won’t stand for it … if you haven’t seen it yet watch, “Rollerball” … the original with James Caan and John Houseman,  I was sixteen when I first saw it, and I got “IT.”

Well, I’m tired of looking the other way.

Lance Armstrong, was a “badass on a bicycle” … he’s still one of my “heroes” … and that’s that … THE END.

 

Joseph Riggio, Princeton

 

It’s Almost That Time Again … MythoMania 2012 

28 – 30 November, Wednesday – Friday
10 AM – 5:30 PM Each Day

This is your opportunity to experience some of the unique MythoSelf Process work, engage with MythoSelf trainers and facilitators, hear about some of the latest developments in the MythoSphere from Joseph Riggio, Ph.D., Architect & Designer of the MythoSelf Process and Soma-Semantics … as well as others who are busy applying and developing the MythoSelf Process model

…  AND it’s all ALMOST totally FREE!

Full Details Here: MythoMania 2012

 

Marketing Truth 104 … (The Heretics File)

by ·

Well it’s time to revisit my original presumption, or rather what it’s not about i.e.:

High quality marketing NOT about hyping something that people want, but believe they don’t have … to present it in a way that makes it appear simple AND easy … like taking the magic pill or the laying on of hands.

Despite the overwhelming presentation of much of the marketing done in the Internet space today that is done that way, e.g.: “In just four hours you’ll transform your life with this amazing gizmo … video … program … software … whatever … whatever … whatever.” 

Be nice … maybe, but it isn’t like that actually in my limited experience. Them’s that got did what it takes to get it.

“Homer was wrong in saying: “Would that strife might perish form among gods and men!” He did not see that the was praying for the destruction of the universe; for if his prayer were heard, all things would pass away.” – Heraclitus

This is the opening quote to one of the most influential books I’ve ever read, “The Judoka” by W.D. Norwood, Jr. In fact the structure of this book informed the way I choose to write my own book, “The State of Perfection: Your Hidden Code to Unleashing Personal Mastery” along with Richard Bandler’s “Magic in Action.”

I find this quote so powerful … beyond that it’s from Heraclitus, which makes it worth paying attention to just because of who he was and the wisdom of what he said in general … because it speaks to a deep truth that is uncomfortable for most folks, i.e.: that pain, suffering, strife, violence, even evil … all the negatives that arise in human experience are part of what and who we are … and are part of what drives us to become what we are not yet but desire to be. Yet most of us do all we can to avoid these aspects of what it is to be human, and thereby avoid the opportunity they provide us to become fully human in the process.

  • How can we know joy without the possibility of suffering? 

  • How can we know what pleasure feels like if there is no discomfort or pain to provide the contrast?

  • How can we know love without the recognition of hate?

These considerations are part of what I call “Inconvenient Wisdom” … the body of human experience and knowledge that point directly to what is evident, but that we’d rather not know about or see. The challenge of Inconvenient Wisdom is that once you have had your eyes, ears, heart and mind opened … you become awakened and can no longer tolerate going back to sleep … the sleep of the waking, walking dead. This is the typical zombie state that most people amble through life in, what some folks (including yours truly) have referred to as the “sheeple” … people ambling along nose to buttocks like sheep being herded to the arrbatior.

Yet this does not need to be the case … AND it’s why I’ve sworn off all “hype marketing” (great title for a book for someone out there with the inclination and inspiration to write it BTW).

While much of what it takes to be extraordinarily successful, to be happy and satisfied with and in your life, to perform at elite levels in virtually any field of endeavor is simple that belies this basic truth:

What is SIMPLE is NOT necessarily EASY!

So there is no magic pill … there is no four hour, four day, four week, four month … or four year program that will make you successful and fulfill all your dreams on it’s own, and there sure as hell isn’t any software program you can plug in that will make you rich while you sleep or lead you to the land of happiness!

If you want what you want …
and it’s not what you already have …
YOU HAVE TO DO THE WORK
… required to get it.

Now many people read the word “WORK” like it’s a curse word … like I told them to go and perform an anatomically impossible task with themselves … but it ain’t … WORK just ain’t what it’s cracked up to be …

Here’s the first thing you want to add into your thinking about what work is … and what it ain’t:

WORK is just something to be done …
no more, no less …
if you want what you want, and you ain’t got it yet.

It’s like taking a bath if you want to be clean after taking a sweaty run or doing a sweaty workout … or maybe working up a sweat in some other more imaginative, more pleasurable kind of way … BUT the point is if you don’t want to be sweaty any more you just have to be willing to run the bath and get into it and it’s done.

Work is just the activity associated with doing the tasks that produce some particular outcome that require some degree of expenditure of effort on your part …

WORK by default is NOT SUFFERING!

A great little book about this last idea above (and I mean LITTLE!) is Staurt Wilde’s “Life Was Never Meant To Be A Struggle” … FWIW I think the audio book version, that Staurt reads, is even better, “Life Was Never Meant To Be A Struggle – AUDIO VERSION” … get it and read it, or listen to it now, you’ll thank me later. (NOTE: The story about the tiger at the beginning is worth the whole price of the book IMO.)

Yet what every Hype Marketer depends on is that you believe that getting what you want requires WORK …AND THAT YOU BELIEVE WORK IS BAD, i.e.: SUFFERING!

This is of course ridiculous … but your nervous system has been trained to associate the word “WORK” and the notions you attach to it to equal suffering … except when you don’t. Here’s a simple example for you …

Think about something you like to do … maybe even love to do … that is or was difficult, e.g.: playing a musical instrument, painting or drawing, gardening (turning over soil … digging … weeding …) … whatever it is for you. Maybe you love working out … the feeling of your muscles working and rippling under your skin … or the simple joy of the activity. It doesn’t matter what the content of your thoughts are, just that you recall something that was or is difficult, but you enjoy or even love doing.

Now, when you think about that think … that was or is difficult … and doing it well does it “feel” like work to you … or something else entirely??? (I’m betting something else entirely.)

How do you feel during and after doing the thing you thought of? Better or worst for the wear???

This is when you think about work, i.e.: the expenditure of effort, like it’s not WORK … just something to be doing to get what you want … SIMPLE!

 

What’s This Got To Do With Me?

Well what I really want to point to is how we all got this way in the first place … where our nervous systems, our entire neurology … where we came to associate EFFORT with WORK.

Maybe you guessed my answer already if you’ve been reading along faithfully in this series … SCHOOL!!!

Waldorf Schools (Steiner Schools in some places) have amongst the best pedagogy based on human developmental processes that I’ve come across … and while powerful and potent for the learners in them in so many ways … still refer to the schooling activity of the students as WORK! 

When my wife and I dropped my daughter off at the local Waldorf Early Education program for pre-schoolers, they referred to her time there as “doing her work.” They meant drawing, singing, dancing, playing and the other things that pre-schoolers tend to do while in the program … BUT THEY CALLED IT WORK!

Then this transitions into … SCHOOL WORK … and then HOMEWORK … the parts of the program that students like least. No more drawing, singing, dancing or playing for the most part … just WORK. All in the service of preparing you for … MORE WORK. Admittedly it’s more than a little insane.

Now within the schooling system you have rituals and patterns that are expected of you in relation to your WORK, e.g.: be on time, start and finish on time, don’t speak with others while you work, let others do their work without interruption, do your work neatly … and one I’ve personally come to love, “Show Your Work.” (that’s sarcasm in case you didn’t recognize it).

Literally it’s not enough to “Do Your Work” even if you do get the desired outcome … you must “Show Your Work” … which means that you must do your work in the particular way the teacher wants to see it … regardless of how creatively you might develop your own way of doing it.

The further absurdity of this is that when you have finished schooling and go to WORK … you still have to “Show Your Work” … i.e.: do it the way the employer now wants you to do it …

And, most of the rituals and patterns you learned at school have become RULES you now live by … e.g.: be on time … do you work neatly … raise your hand if you want to speak in a group … blah, blah, blah …

The challenge is that you never learned that you were following rules that you had a choice about … so they get imprinted on your soul and psyche … they become part of your default response pattern at the level of reflex response in your nervous system when you have any contextual stimuli that are connected to the RULES.

So you don’t … and can’t break free … UNTIL YOU GET THAT YOUR FOLLOWING ARBITRARY RULES CREATED BY OTHERS FOR THEIR CONVENIENCE, COMFORT AND BENEFIT … NOT YOURS!

Okay … so what can you do …

WAKE UP!

I used to play a video game with my son, “Toe Jam and Earl” … about two aliens that crash land on Earth, their spaceship falls into pieces and they have to reclaim the pieces to get home. In the process all these annoying people try to interrupt them from completing their task … policemen, supermarket shoppers with baskets, obnoxious children … and they have to avoid them, sometimes using the only weapon they have … rotten tomatoes which they can throw at the annoying humans.

Every once in a while after running around on this strange planet Toe Jam or Earl fall asleep … and that’s when they’re most vulnerable to the annoying humans … so you have to use the power you have in the game to get them to WAKE UP! … literally shouting “WAKE UP!” to them to rouse them from their slumber … it’s the only way they can survive. It was a fantastic game with a remarkably repetitive sound track that still in my head today.

So the first step is learning that there are rules you’re following, that don’t seem like rules at all, but simple truths. Then you have to notice where the rules show up … and make conscious decisions about them. This doesn’t mean not following the RULES, it means being aware of what you’re doing as you do. Then you can take the step to choose which RULES to follow and which ones to ignore or rebel against. Once you get that you don’t have to follow the RULES because they are there … you can begin making up your own RULES … very cool!

Now the first RULE that I suggest you examine is
the RULE about
things having to be EASY
before they are valuable to you
… and reconsidering the value of
SIMPLE AND DAMN HARD! 

Trust me … there are so many times in life that I’ve found that HARD is really good for getting what I want …
Joseph Riggio, Ph.D.

Princeton, NJ

 

PS – If you’d like to speak with me about working with me privately, or in a group you can still register for a private, one-to-one complimentary conversation with me using the link below and Niki my Executive Assistant will get back to you to schedule a time for us to speak:

YES PLEASE …
I WANT TO SCHEDULE A COMPLIMENTARY TIME TO SPEAK WITH JOSEPH