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New Games and New Code …. Survival and Prosperity in the New World Order

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New Games and New Code …
Survival and Prosperity in the New World Order

 

I’ve struggled with writing this post for more than a few days now.

Let me begin at the beginning and sharing why this has been a difficult post for me to write.

I hate the idea of being a harbinger of doom, and this is not going to be that, but there are some folks who might read it that way anyway because of their existing mindset. So the compromise I’ve decided to make is to let you know up front that this won’t be my regular cheery, inspiring type post, but something more serious and deeper.

WARNING:

If you are prone to being easily pulled to a negative mindset you might want to stop reading here and delete this particular post. What I want to share in it will be disturbing for some to read, especially if they are not prepared to hear some inconvenient truths and deal with them before time runs out on them. Sorry to be so blunt, but the prime directive of my philosophy is truly “First Do No Harm – To One’s Self.”

Okay now that we have that out of the way and you’ve decided to step beyond reasonable caution and my warning about what might be perceived as disturbing news I’ll get to it with you …

YOUR TIME IS LIMITED TO TAKE ACTION ON YOUR BEHALF TO PREPARE YOURSELF FOR WHAT IS OBVIOUSLY A NEW WORLD ORDER.

I assume if you’re a regular reader you know that I am a U.S. citizen and reside in the United States. However, I by no means consider myself any less of a citizen of the planet than an American citizen, because anyone who’s thinking clearly realizes that no one can afford to ignore the interconnectedness of the planet on a global level.

I’ll leave the pure science to the scientists (physical, biological and social), but you are probably aware of the news that circulates about things like:

  • global warming (fact not fiction, only the cause is in debate)
  • recent significant sun spot activity (the most extreme in recent times)
  • the dire state of our oceans (depleted fishing stocks, coral reef die off, pollution on a scale that’s visible from space …)
  • the issue with our energy sources that will likely continue to exacerbate (oil reserves are dwindling, new sources of oil have consequences that we need to seriously consider, e.g.: fracking shale and the chemical pollution, running pipelines across virgin wilderness, oil spills in the oceans and seas …, nuclear power and the containment and waste issues …)
  • political and economic unrest circulating around the planet (the rising tensions on the mid-East … Israel/Iran, Libya, Syria …, the economic fallout in the E.U. … Greece’s imminent default, Spain and Italy on the verge of serious economic tailspins …)

I could point to more but I’m sure you get the point … i.e.: there’s serious stuff happening. This is not news BTW … there’s always serious stuff happening. The news is that it’s happening on a global scale that’s largely unprecedented in modern times in a world that is inextricably interconnected in a way that has never before been present to my knowledge.

 

Becoming An Enlightened World Citizen:

This makes it urgent that we all become Enlightened World Citizens. I mean that we commit ourselves to pulling ours heads up out of the sand, waking up and smelling the proverbial coffee regarding the state of the planet, including but not limited to the state of the various societies in which we reside.

The opposite of being an Enlightened World Citizen is believing that “the government” will take care of it … or that there are others more qualified to address the serious issues we are confronting than we are … this is just an artifact of the manipulation of all governments in the modern era, but give me a moment more to explain.

Sometime recently, let’s just say sometime post World War II as a common demarcation point, there has been a shift from governments that hold an obligation to serving the people to governments that serve themselves, i.e.: the people in and running the world government bodies. We’ve seen a worldwide crisis in the political domain to governments declaring that their top priority is the continuation of government (and we can assume that means the folks who are now running it and their direct supporters) and not the fate of the common people that are by default the nation these governments represent. This is in fact a declaration of class warfare, establishing a privileged class of those who hold senior government roles and those who support them, i.e.: big money backers, and the rest of us. 

Please make no mistake about this … I do not intend you to read my last sentence above as hyperbole, i.e.: that our governments are declaring a de-facto class warfare on the common citizen, but instead as a statement of obvious fact based on evidence that can be tracked.

 

Governmental Class Warfare:

For example, here in the United States we saw an abominable piece of legislation passed as a National Health Care Bill putting into law forced purchasing of health care from privately held insurance companies under the duress of fines to be executed by the Internal Revenue Service. This is horrific legislation in my opinion and in the opinion of many clear thinking social and political scholars. The supporters are decrying that it was the best they could do, but better than nothing. I say we’d be better off with nothing, but I’ll leave that be for now.

Let me just address one specific aspect of that bill. As an accommodation to those who are in government, i.e.: the folks who wrote and passed the National Health Care legislation, they are above this law. Pubic “servants”, e.g.: congress men and women, senators and of course the President and his family, will keep their government provided (read: paid for by the people) health care policies, which are A) unavailable to the common citizen and B) superior to just about any privately provided insurance policy that an individual can purchase barring all considerations of cost. This is a de-facto statement of a declaration of a privileged class by my reading of the evidence. As an American citizen I find this to be offensive legislation, and doubly so when it’s sold to the public as serving the underserved.

I can point out more … e.g.: the recent legislation here in the U.S. that makes the time honored laws around haebeus corpus null and void. If you question my veracity of this claim here is a direct quote from the ACLU:

“The Senate voted 38-60 to reject an important amendment [that] would have removed harmful provisions authorizing the U.S. military to pick up and imprison without charge or trial civilians, including American citizens, anywhere in the world… We’re disappointed that, despite robust opposition to the harmful detention legislation from virtually the entire national security leadership of the government, the Senate said ‘no’ to the Udall amendment and ‘yes’ to indefinite detention without charge or trial.”¹

If you understand constitutional law in an even cursory way, or care at all about civil liberties as a citizen, this is a terrifying indication of things to come. Habeus corpus is a fundamental point in any conversation about “the rule of law’ that is so often cited by fans of big government initiative. The right of habeus corpus was established in English Common Law in 1679 in the  Habeus Corpos Act, and has remained a central tenant of the rule of law in terms of protecting the rights of the citizenry against undue government aggression. Yet here we are after more than three hundred years of accepting this as a fundamental right of law granted to the citizens for protection against their government taking unjust action against them with the repeal of this law virtually overnight.

Maybe the more significant question here is whether this legislation to suspend habeus corpus is even constitutional. This is important to you regardless of where you are reading this from, what your national origin of citizenry is, or in which country you reside. It is not only an issue of U.S. law, but of an indication of the kind of changes to common law that are being worked into systems around the world … often in the guise of national security, national sovereignty or national prosperity. This last, national prosperity, is possibly the most worrying.

In Greece recently we’ve seen an entire population held hostage not even by their own government, but by the actions of an external body who has demanded austerity measures placed on the people of that nation that serve the external actors far more than they serve the people of Greece. If Greece defaults on it’s economic obligations today there is little doubt that the country as a whole would suffer severe economic retribution from it’s lenders. However, this begs the question, “Which is worse, a single default with the repercussions that will entail on a road back to economic stability, or the on-going deprivations of an entire nation to keep feeding the economic masters they come to depend upon?”

Along with our international allies, here in the U.S. we are becoming ever more subject to the dubious imposition of “international law” that our government, specifically the Presidential Administration, seems ever more willing to allow to usurp of rights as a sovereign nation. We are engaged in war acts on behalf of an international request without the due sanctioning of those acts by Congress, who by U.S. Constitutional law hold the sole right to declare and engage in war acts. The only exception to this is direct and imminent threat to the nation of the United States and/or the land itself.

According to United States constitutional law the President can only act with urgency to secure the national interests of the United States, and then still must go to Congress to authorize any continuation of the war acts. Our current President, Barack Obama, has declared himself above this constitutional imperative, denying even the questions posed to him to address this issue. This is evident by example in the recent action taken in Libya by U.S. armed forces, first in the bombing raid and then in terms of supplying ground support. His excuse was that there was an international request for U.S. action, and he complied, without feeling any need to honor constitutional law it seems.

This, as they say, is just the tip of the iceberg. While many of my examples above are based on actions occurring here in the U.S., they are typical of the kinds of actions governments are enacting around the world as I write this post. The point of these examples are to provide the impetus to recognize that you must become responsible for your own sovereignty first and foremost.

 

The Challenge of Sovereignty:

Now here’s the major concept I want to introduce …

It’s largely impossible to remain “sovereign” as an individual in today’s political and economic climate … you can only seek to remain aware and move with the flow of the actions you are subject to, unless and until there is a major revisioning of the structure of both national and international laws and significant political reform.

For what it’s worth, I think this will happen … very probably within the lifetime of most of the folks who are likely to be reading this post.

However, unless and until this kind of reform happens you have only yourself to turn to, along with those who share a like-minded view and are savvy enough to be preparing themselves to act as and when necessary. 

Once again, let me be clear as to what I mean by the statement above.

  • I am not suggesting stockpiling food and water.

  • I am not suggesting that you arm yourself and stockpile weapons and ammunition.

  • I am not suggesting that you conspire to revolt or rise against the government with violence.

These are the acts of fear that I would specifically suggest you avoid and shun. At best actions of this kind are a bandaid on a grievous wound should they become necessary, i.e.: to protect ourselves against a government gone haywire that seeks to harm it’s own citizens, or a major economic or environmental catastrophe.

  • I am suggesting that you become informed, and to stay informed.

  • I am suggesting that you develop and hone the skills to notice what I call “the signals in the system.”

  • I am suggesting that you let go of your false beliefs of security based on the way the world was fifty or more years ago.

  • I am suggesting that you build a kind of internal “rapid response system” that will allow you to respond to the events that unfold around you in real time (and not after the fact when it’s too late to do what you need to for yourself and those you care about and love).

  • I am suggesting that your primary tool of survival is your mind in times like these, and you must prioritize it’s care and feeding so to speak.

  • I am suggesting that you do whatever it takes to develop razor-honed senses that allow you to react prudently despite the crisis or chaos that emerges around you.

Now I admit I’m a bit biased, but I deeply and truly believe that preparing for what’s coming by trying to build a stockpile of any kind of material resources BEFORE you build the mental resources that will serve you in crisis and chaos is downright foolish and possibly suicidal.

I had the privilege of beginning this path of formally learning how to be mentally prepared to deal with whatever life and the world threw my way from the tender age of 15 or so.  I could go into detail, but that would detract from the essential message I want to be sharing here. Suffice it to say that I’ve had teachers who were real life experts in survival in circumstances of crisis and chaos, including real life and death scenarios, and that I took their lessons to heart.

What I learned from these folks is that becoming mentally agile and nimble is the single best form of security in times that are uncertain. If nothing else I would expect you would agree with me that we live in uncertain times. What these folks paid attention to were using the signals in the system to project where the system was moving before it arrived at where it is headed.

 

Playing the “New Game” Using the “New Code”:

Today I meet many people who are playing the game as it was defined fifty or more years ago, and missing the big picture that the game has changed. Let me state that categorically, this is NOT the game your parents and grandparents played … it’s not changing, it has already changed … and woe to you if you fail to catch up and smell the metaphorical coffee that’s burning on the stove as you’re reading this now. You’ve got to catch up and learn how to properly interpret the signals in the system based on the “new code” that is present today, and not apply the code you learned growing up, or the code constantly being misrepresented in the popular media today.

The “old code” worked for a long time, i.e.: become part of the system … study hard, do well in school, get a good job, keep your nose to the grindstone … and you would largely be rewarded commensurately with your contribution. This no longer holds true. In fact this is the most blatant form of misinformation and propaganda that you could possibly be subjected to in the current system, i.e.: “education is the great equalizer” … BULLSHIT! Education is absolutely NO GUARANTEE that you will succeed or even survive … just ask the thousands of college graduates out of work and laboring under unbelievable debt from student loans.

However, your government, big business, the wealthy upper-class in all societies internationally, the popular media lapdogs … all will try to persuade you of this “evident” truth, e.g.: Mitt Romney, a current front-runner in the U.S. primaries for the selection of the Republican Presidential candidate, recently told a student who questioned him in a rally to select a school that doesn’t cost too much that would provide a good education, and “not to expect the U.S. government to forgive student loans.” This is both atrocious and frightening behavior from a super-wealthy politician who hopes to become President of the United States. I can assure you this is NOT the advice he’s given to his children. His children are more likely than not to attend one of the most privileged schools in the United States, make contacts there that will secure them entry into the most select opportunities for the rest of their lives, and carry with them the calling card that opens doors only having an elite education can do for you in the United States.

As I said, make no mistake about this … we are engaged in class warfare … and the only “real” weapon you have is your mind.

 

How-To Survive, Succeed and Prosper In the “New Game” Using “New Code”:

Okay … so what can you do?

  • First of all you can acknowledge and recognize that this is indeed a new game we are all playing.

  • Next, you can acknowledge and recognize that they old rules no longer apply.

  • Third you can begin to learn the “new code” I’ve referred to above.

  • And, most importantly you can begin to build and develop the mental tools you’ll need to play this new game using the new code effectively. 

I’ll leave steps one and two above to you, with a single caveat … you’d be a fool to trust the popular media for your news. This includes any widely distributed newspaper, periodical, radio or television news programming. There are no sources that fall under these categories I’ve just mentioned that are exempt. Tuning into many of these sources, making a concerted effort to tune into those news sources that hold seemingly conflicting views is a start if you’re not prepared to go further, however this will NOT keep you informed in the way I’m suggesting in this post.

Understand this … the major news media is a business enterprise, and as such it’s primary obligation is to make money NOT to report the news or provide world-class journalistic objectivity or coverage. To get beyond the surface level that the major media news sources are committed to maintaining, including all the misinformation and propaganda, you would have to go to much more selective sources, and that is beyond the scope of this posting to provide. The best recommendation I can quickly give you however is this, A) find independent resources and speciality resources (e.g.: scientific journals, academic journals …) and B) cross check their reporting to gain a wider view of the stories you are following, and become selective in where you place your attention … most reporting is entertainment and designed to deflect your attention from the real stories that matter. You can only build this skill with commitment and time.

 If you’re willing to make the commitment and devote the time to gathering and absorbing the real news you will become far more discerning about local and world affairs, and my points 1 and 2 above will be taken care of, however you cannot skip this step and expect to succeed in steps 3 and 4. 

In order to discuss how to learn the new code I’m referring to I need to take a minute and define what I mean by the new code.

The new code is a reference I’m using regarding the rules of engagement in the new game we are currently playing globally. The best way for me to get to the new game is to point out some of the old games (there are more than I’m going to point to here).

 

Old Games:

Game A:

There was a game called, “The church/temple/mosque, state, government … will take care of you.” this game is still prevalent in some parts of the world, and present in virtually all parts of the world to some degree or another, i.e.: some portion of the population is still playing this game. The markers of this game are … “Just be good, do all that is required and requested of you and the rest will take care of itself.” The people who play this game are hoping for the kind of stability and security that the senior players, i.e.: priests, rabbis, imams, monk … president, prime minister, dictator … whatever, promise them. Ultimately the people who play this game become fodder for the feeding of the people they serve.

Game B:

There is another game called, “If you have enough and take care of your self you’ll be okay.” this is a game of material acquisition. It is very prevalent today in many parts of the world. In fact this is still probably the most prevalent game begin played today, even by most of the folks who live at or near the top of the heap, and virtually everyone in the middle who isn’t playing the game above. The markers for this game is the belief in the idea that, “He who has the most toys wins.” or “You have to look out for yourself because no one else is looking out for you.” … and the idea that you can have enough to keep you secure, safe and sovereign despite the obvious evidence to the contrary. This game will continue to be popular and played, even giving those who succeed best at it some illusion of the security, safety and sovereignty they seek, however all the evidence is in that it is only a matter of time until you can’t have enough to be protected.

Game C:

A third game is called,“If you are part of the right group you too can share in the wealth and privilege that is rightfully yours.” this is a game that has gained popularity among folks living in the most prosperous nations of the world, who themselves come from a position of prosperity (largely the result of those who played or are playing the game above). This is the most dangerous game on the planet in my opinion. It’s dangerous in many ways.

  • First of all the people who play it often believe it is “the game” that should be played by everyone, so they seek to bring everyone into their game … willingly or not.

  • Secondly, they think they are playing a game that has equal rules for everyone playing it, while they ignore all those who are not playing and can’t or won’t, and the significant stratification to resources even among those who are playing.

  • Third, and most significantly, this is the game that the top politicians and their cronies are playing at around the world and the others playing at it support them in achieving the lifestyles and privilege I’ve been bemoaning in this entire posting.

The markers for this game include, “You can play with us if you agree to join us and use our rules … but of course we respect your right not to play, we just won’t share any of our resources with you and will persecute you for being different.” What makes this so scary is that the folks who play this particular game really believe in the game they are playing, and that it’s only right everyone should be playing this game with them.

 

New Games (and the New Code they use):

 Now there are two new code games I want to present for your consideration:

New Game 1:

This game is called, “I’m free to do what I want, when I want and where I want … as long as I don’t get caught by the system.” this game is the outgrowth of a jet-setting lifestyle popularized by those playing Game C above. The folks who play this game believe they can remain just outside of any system that seeks to contain them, using multiple sets of rules as suits them to achieve the freedom and liberty they most desire. A couple of the markers of this game are, “I’m a world citizen and don’t feel confined by or obligated to any one nation or system on the planet.” and “The formal systems on the planet are so f@#ked up that the only way to survive is to find a way to be beyond their reach.” Following these rules the players of this game seek to remain unencumbered by any single system, but to benefit from as many of the systems they encounter as they can. To some extent the players of the first new code game are first and foremost game players who seek to win the game even if it means sacrificing a hand or two depending on the cards their dealt in this round. An advantage of this game is that they players are good at inventing new ways to win and leaving others alone, while they pursue their own satisfaction. A major disadvantage of this game is that it does little to nothing to contribute to the common good, and in fact saps the resources of the system-at-large serving only the individual who is playing. 

New Game 2:

This game is called, “I’m sick and tired and I’m not going to take it anymore … join up or be left behind!” and it’s a game that is gaining serious popularity and adherents among the children of the common folk who are playing games B and C above. The markers of this game include, “You’ve left me a world that is dying and depleted, and you expect me to sit by passively, while you continue to suck up the resources of the world and f@#k it up for the rest of us!” These are largely young, ambitious and angry youth who want to live the promise of a different future than games A, B or C suggest to them. They are willing to move from complaining to taking action, including stepping away from the old rules and old code of the old games. When their momentum builds enough they are quite willing and able to take the reigns from the current stock of world leaders and reset the system. The only real questions in my mind are:

  • will they have enough time to do it

  • will there be enough left to build a new future from when they are in control, and

  • what damage will happen between now and then as the transition to New Game 2 is unfolding?

So the new code I’m referring to is reflected in the attitudes of the people who are playing the new games (1 & 2 above). Some of the distinctions of people who are playing the new games using new code are that:

  • they are self-responsible – not leaving it to others to determine their fate

  • they are globally, socially, economically, politically and environmentally aware

  • they are activists – even if it is only in their own self-interest, they are innovative and committed to inventing new solutions to the situations they encounter instead of depending on old formulas, dictums and paradigms

While we could extend this list that should give you a good idea about what I mean by the “new code.”

 

Learning the New Games and the New Code:

Frankly learning the new games and the new code isn’t going to be for everyone. Just a posting like this is enough for many people to get them running back to the old game they’ve been playing, going back to sleep and accepting the pablum they’re being fed that passes for news, driving their head under the sand and hoping this is all just another “Chicken Little Chant” claiming that the sky is falling.

Only the folks who are ready to become Enlightened World Citizens are likely to sit up and take notice of a posting like this, in fact I expect I’ll be getting equal numbers of hate mail and praise mail once I’ve published this post. I look forward to both because it’s all data in the system and grist to the mill of my mind as I continue to hone my “new code” skills.

Here are some of my recommendations for you if you’ve decided that what I’m proposing is interesting and you’d like to know more, or take the next steps forward.

If you are over the age of seventy :

  • stay alert and do what you can to pick up on the signals in the system
  • be prepared to hunker down and secure what you have, largely by becoming “grey” … don’t stand out
  • do what you can to preserve and secure what wealth you have
  • if you don’t yet have any security funds of your own start setting some aside as the dole may dry up (think in terms of hard, liquid, moveable assets for at least part of this funding)
  • build networks of contacts you can count on and to the extent you’re able who can count on you … include those who are older and need your help if possible, as well as those who are younger and you can reach out to in times of need or crisis (this may be your most important lifeline if things really hit the fan)
If you are between the ages of fifty and seventy:
  • begin becoming a consumer of world news, including non-traditional resources in your data feed (the Internet can be a great source of these resources, but you have to be discerning about the quality of the data you’re receiving)
  • make a concerted effort to build multiple nest eggs … DO NOT PUT ALL YOUR EGGS IN ONE BASKET! (use access to international funding to build resources in more than one jurisdiction legally so if something critical hits one of the places where you are invested you can resort to your other holdings)
  • consider your hard assets and liquid assets as perishable and create a plan of action regarding what you will do if they are devalued in some significant way (your best resource is your ability to create new wealth on the fly, if you don’t yet have a way to do this consider getting the knowledge and/or skills you need to prosper in hard times, e.g.: manual craft skills will always be necessary and in demand, basic life survival knowledge and skills will always be in demand as well)
  • if you don’t yet have them invest in learning real “human skills” – including high quality communication and decision-making skills (even in the worst of times these can’t be taken from you and will most definitely serve you – two recommendations in this arena are Paul Eckman’s “Telling Lies” and “Leadership and Self-Deception” by The Arbinger Group)
  • depending on where you see yourself on your career trajectory make the most of it, or find a way to ease yourself out of it with as many good contacts in place as possible (this is likely to be the moment in your life where you have the most substantial and well developed professional contacts you will ever have, deepening those that are valuable to you is worth your time and effort, do this by becoming a valuable contact yourself)
If you are between the ages of thirty-five and fifty:
  • make a significant commitment to becoming an astute and diligent consumer of information – commit to reading multiple sources of news, both popular and alternative, also subscribe to a leading journal in science, social sciences/economics/foreign policy and at least one from your personal field of professional focus
  • build a deep nest egg, and then diversify your investments – use multiple forms of investment, and don’t be afraid to include some risky investments in the mix with a high potential for strong and aggressive growth, also include some hard assets – especially those that are liquid and mobile
  • commit to developing exquisite skills, both professional/expert and general human skills (e.g.: communication/decision-making) – you need to invest in developing yourself at least as much if not more than your portfolio, these are the most permanent resources you can develop – despite changes that occur in the world around you these are yours to keep, being skillful in human interaction will be seen more and more as an expert skill that has high value in the future as it’s unfolding (NOTE: don’t be misled by the current emphasis on science and technology, while these skills will remain important they will become more and more commonplace to possess, while real expertise in the general human skills will be less available and more highly valued)
If you are under the age of thirty five (what are you doing reading this?):
  • this is the moment to be developing your life skills and contacts aggressively – this translates into doing things, lots of things … build multiple experiences and get as wide a variety of exposure as you can, specifically don’t get lost in a single space, e.g.: a “lifetime” position, because it won’t exist for you when you need it most
  • become financially astute, but don’t worry about creating your fortune – Henry Ford is famous for saying that he didn’t save a nickel until he was forty, he invested all his money in himself and his business until then … a man ahead of his time, but you do want to learn about the way money works and how the financial marketplace and the economy will and do effect you … study the patterns of movement of money to build a facility to notice the patterns as they are emerging and then move onto developing a sense for predicting where the markets are heading
  • develop a “sixth sense” for people, learn who to stay close to and whom to avoid – you have a unique window of opportunity to develop your people skills in a way that will become unavailable to you as you grow older, this is akin to the window of opportunity to learn a new language with greater facility at particular points in your development than others, as we approach full adulthood and maturity we are naturally organized to reset our patterns of personal interaction in a way that becomes more fixed as we get older, take advantage of this window by engaging in as much productive human contact as possible – and find opportunities to get high quality input from others who can help you establish good patterns as soon as possible
Of course I could be more specific, but this is already a long post and my recommendations above should be sufficient to get you started at least.

 

If you’re unsure about where to begin start from where you are most familiar and comfortable and then stretch from there.

 

I look forward to your comments …

 

Best,

Joseph Riggio, Ph.D.

Princeton, NJ
PS – To jump start your own learning about the new games and the new code have a look at my programs that will most definitely rock your world regarding what I refer to above as “real human skills” start here: Joseph Riggio Training – Courses

 

¹Senate Rejects Amendment Banning Indefinite Detention (http://www.aclu.org/blog/national-security/senate-rejects-amendment-banning-indefinite-detention)

 

 

Applied Mythology 101: Reflections On Heroes, Mentors and Stories

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Applied Mythology, ala Dr. Joseph Riggio and the MythoSelf Process, Is NOT About The Telling Of Old Stories …

Applied Mythology IS ABOUT How To Incorporate The Structure Of Mythic Form Into Your Life To Make It More Whole and Wellformed … i.e.: More Blissful

 

Heroes and Mentors

I have a couple or “Intellectual Heroes and Mentors” folks whose intellectual/academic work has spurred me on in my work. Some of my heroes and mentors I found many years ago, some are newer to me. These are folks I’ve spent a lot of time with, reading their books, writing about their ideas, incorporating and applying their ideas in my own work, using what they developed as a platform to leap from in developing my own fledgling conceptualizations, methods and processes … and finally, in some cases, coming to the point where I truly believe I have mastered the ideas they wrestled with first and made accessible to me in their life’s work.

When I talk my intellectual heroes and mentors I’m not talking about the folks who necessarily had the most actual influence in my life. The folks who had the most influence in my life would include those closest to me, family, some teachers, friends and very near the top Roye, my own mentor for nearly twenty years.

My intellectual mentors and heroes are folks like,

  • Carlos Castaneda (yes … it’s true, very influential to my thinking in my late teens and early twenties … his writing opened up the entire possibility of alternative realities and magical thinking to me)
  • Suzuki Roshi and Alan Watts (very early on … around 11 years old … I began to become interested in and to train in martial arts, this led me to writings about Zen, Taoism and Bushido, and by 15 I was “sitting” regularly myself … and reading Watts caused me to question everything)
  • Milton Erickson (in my twenties I developed a profound fascination with hypnosis and began reading intensely on the subject … then I found Milton Erickson, and everything I’d though about hypnosis shifted for me)
  • F.M. Alexander, Moshe Feldenkrais and Thomas Hana (the idea of how the body was influencing the mind … and subsequently my behaviors had me … for more than a few years, from my mid-twenties through to my mid-thirties, I was diligently working to figure out where the interface was and how to operate it)
  • Dudley Lynch (leading me to) Clare W. Graves (there was something in Dudley’s book “Strategy of the Dolphin” that caught my attention deeply when it came out … later I found he was pointing to a true genius of social evolutionary thinking, Dr. Graves … I’ve now spent many hundreds (or possibly thousands) of hours deeply contemplating and applying the Graves model in my work)
  • Edmund Husserl, Soren Kirkegaard, Martin Heidegger, Ludwig Wittengenstein, John Searle et al … (I tracked the movement of modern philosophy from phenomenology, through to existentialism, and then onto analytic philosophy I delved deeply into what these folks had to say about the Philosophy of Mind … and by the time I got to the analytical philosophers what they were saying about language and reality as well)
  • Charles Sanders Pierce, John Dewy, William James, Richard Schusterman, et al … (I love the work of the American Pragmatists … this is a philosophy that draws deeply upon the aesthetic and it speaks to me deeply … I get the sentiment and the soul of pragmatism, in the way that it shows up in life, like no other philosophy)
  • Joseph Chilton Pearce, Daniel Siegel, David Abram, Jeffrey Schwartz, George Lakoff, Mark Johnson, Nicholas Humphrey, et al … (there a whole host of neuroscientists, linguists, cognitive scientists, etc. who are exploring the ideas that are at the heart of my fascinations and they have all at one time or another influenced my thinking … some more deeply than others)
  • Richard Bandler & John Grinder (I’ve read everything they’ve written … jointly and solely … some of their books ten or more times … and some I barely got through once … but the work of NLP still holds my attention like little else, especially in the direction it took under my tutelage with Roye)
  • Joseph Campbell (I saved him for the last because he surely ranks as one of the folks I literally consider to be an intellectual hero and mentor to me … much of my thinking has been influenced by the writing and speaking of Joseph Campbell and his take on the structure and form of mythological thinking)

Believe me that’s the short list … but I want to share a range of the kind of folks I’ve been paying attention to over the years. It has been a funky, fun, interesting and enlightening journey … and I’m guessing I’m now about halfway there.

 

So What’s This Got To Do With You?

HECK … ONLY EVERYTHING …

I’ve laid it out before and I’ll do it again … YOU ARE YOUR STORY!

The sources that inform your story contribute to the form it takes … i.e.: WHO YOU BECOME! Of course, I’m not saying that you become the story of the sources that inform your story, you become something like a multi-hued reflection of the multiplicity of sources that you continue to absorb that inform the story you are living. Keeping it simple if you were to see a tree from the point of view of an Impressionist painter reflected on water, the seemingly infinite number of leaves are the equivalent of the sources that inform your story … and there is a main trunk that is unique and singular as well.

Now, before I keep jumping forward let me make it really clear that within the structure of where I place my attention, “YOUR STORY” is really a bunch of stories that are interwoven like a tapestry that forms what you experience as the ground of being in your life … for you this tapestry defines “what is real” and how to make sense of what you encounter in an ongoing way. I use the word STORY and not tapestry because for most people the tapestry I refer to is experienced in the form of an autobiographical narrative.

NOW HERE”S A MAJOR POINT …

Most people experience their own unique autobiographical narrative as “absolute” … meaning that at any given moment in time what you believe to have happened and is happening is actually true to fact for you. For example you believe you are reading these words and in this moment no one could dissuade you about that as being a fact. This is true even though there are a thousand other things that are true in that moment that just passed and in this one as well … that you ignored, deleted and distorted.

Let’s expand that one just a little … you think you are reading “THESE WORDS” – but YOU ARE MUCH MORE LIKELY TO BE READING WHAT YOU THINK THESE WORDS MEAN … and not the words themselves. Let me demonstrate what I mean … in an hour you’ll have a memory of reading this, but what will you remember, the words you’re now reading, or what you think these words mean? It’s that simple at one level and it’s levels all the way down …

For most people this also represents what they experience their memories like as well, i.e.: absolute narratives of what happened. You are as likely to do this about what happened less than a minute ago as you are about what happened a decade ago … and you’re as likely to be just as wrong about both. It would be foolish to trust that you’re memories are accurate to fact, they’re just not. You can find overwhelming evidence that your memory works as a flawed system, and that may in fact be in your best interest. So while you’re memory may be flawed, your memory will be how the world world was and continues to be for you.

Okay so what does this have to do with you again?

At the most basic level it would be useful to recognize that what you are creating in your interactions with others aren’t really experiences, but flawed representations of those experiences called memories. People will not remember what you say or do, they will remember the impression of what you say or do has on them … and it will be different from what you say or do in some measure, large or small.

We could go on with the practical aspects of what this has to do with you, but for now I’ll stop with that example there.

The main point you want to get from this, if you get anything at all, would be that they are all stories … and those stories collect into an Über Story that becomes the Gestalt you are living. The gestalt of your life may be best thought of as a “reality filter.”

 

Living Your Life Story

I’ve been making the point that you are living your Life Story. This story represents only one way of interpreting all the events that have happened and are happening, as for as long as you have this story, what will happen too.

You have no choice but to live your Life Story … BUT you do have a choice over what story you are living!

[NOTE: You may want to add into this narrative that you’re reading now that one of the most powerful ways to choice your Life Story would be to pick the stories that go into it.]

The stories you accept as being “real” are only a part of the construct of your Life Story, i.e.: your memories of your experiences as you know them to be. In addition to the things we experience, and the things we “know” there are the things we can’t explain … that we yearn to have an explanation for nonetheless, e.g.:

  • Why do bad things happen to good people? …
  • Why did that happen to me, and not to them? …
  • Why did that happen to them, and not to me? …
  • Why am I here? …
  • Who am I? …

 This may be the most profound function of myth,
to answer the unanswerable.

Now I am not saying that myth, or more properly in the way I am using this idea – mythic form, has literal, concrete answers. Rather than providing literal, concrete answers myth shows the way … it’s is about the path, the journey, the process … not about the content. Myth gives us what we cannot possess … as way to see ourselves. The eye cannot see itself, the finger cannot touch itself … the eye must have a reflection of itself to “see” itself, the finger must be touched to “touch” itself … in this way myth provides the reflection and the touch for us to know ourselves beyond ourselves.

Myth places the most significant and urgent information “out there” beyond the limits of how we “know” things to be … including ourselves. This information may be simply revealing, “Oh, now I see how I am like that too.” … or educational/instructive … “Now I get how I can move beyond this moment in which I have been stuck.” or it may reveal, educate and instruct us about others and the world we share, “Ah, now I get how he/she/they think the world must be.”

This information comes to us as an impression, not as a “fact” or “absolute.” Myth offers us the means to use our innate intuitions about the world to construct a reality that fits our experience. The opportunity myth provides can and will take us beyond self-imposed and socially-imposed limitations if we allow it. We are built to “guess” at “what the world ‘is’ out there” – we don’t have the equipment to “know” the world out there, we miss too much of it, and make up most of it as we go along. The philosophers, psychologists, cognitive scientists, neuroscientists … and others have been hard at work for centuries proving how limited and flawed our perceptual capacities are in fact.

To use a Robert Anton Wilson phrase:

“Whatever the Thinker thinks, the Prover proves.”

(from Prometheus Rising)

So you can say, once we find the way to reset our “Thinker” we have found the way out of our own limiting beliefs … because the “Prover” will prove whatever the “Thinker” thinks!

The trick to resetting the “Thinker” has always been the same … A, B, C

  • A) Give the “Thinker” new data in the form of experience and information to work with
  • B) Make the experience and information that you provide the “Thinker” with emotionally compelling … i.e.: make it “feel really good” or “feel really bad“
  • C) Create a recursive somatic loop in the “Thinker” that connects the experience and information to the feeling in the body where it will be stored and accessed/re-accessed later

 

“We act based on how we “feel” about things that prompts us to “think” things are as they are for us … i.e.: change the association to how we “feel” about things and we change what we “think about them.”

“Applied Mythology, as mythic form, gives us the mechanism to change how we feel about what we think.”

“We can update our Life Story by encountering powerful stories that are emotionally compelling and create new associations between what we “know” and how we “feel” about it … this has always been the appeal and power of mythology, literature, theater … and more and more today the stories we encounter in film.”

– Joseph Riggio, Ph.D.

 

This is my quest … to follow my myth wherever it leads … and for now it leads me to be an applied mythologist.

So I have an invitation for you … will you join me on your journey?

As always I look forward to seeing, reading and responding to your comments …

 

Joseph Riggio, Ph.D., Princeton, NJ

Architect and Designer of the MythoSelf Process & Soma-Semantics

 

PS – There will be an Applied Mythology 102, or 202, someday soon … promise. In that installment I’ll share some of my thoughts about the “Social Myths” that keep us stuck where we find ourselves today … and some possible stories that might help to free us in the societies we are constructing going forward … my little take on “Social Ontology”

 

How Modern Business Models Developed

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It Isn’t Always Obvious How Modern Business Models Limit Entrepreneurship … Or What To Do About It … But There’s A Postmodern Eject Option That Will Set You Free

 

[This particular post is dedicated to the real and aspiring entrepreneurs out there,
especially my brethren who are the creators, compilers and consorts of information ...
and it's distribution to the people.]

 As Always, I like to start near the beginning …

In the case of looking at modern business models we need to look to the great monarchies and empires that grew out of the dawn of the Agricultural Era. There were a number of forces that shaped societies at this time, including the ever present economic forces driving the behaviors of men (Author’s Note: assume the term “men” is used here and throughout for convenience sake referring to all of humankind, i.e.: children, women and men).

By economic forces we can begin with the fundamental necessities required for sustaining and nurturing life, including creating a context appropriate to successful procreation. Prior to the Agricultural Era the evidence we have uncovered points to at least two previous phases of evolutionary development in human systems, a “Hunter/Gatherer” phase and a “Hunter/Horticulturist” phase. Sometime during these phases of human development basis social tenants were being programmed into the basic biological machinery as well as the social machinery. Essential remnants of the developmental process that imprinted itself on the human species remain in place today, e.g.: competition and altruism.

The primary social evolution mechanism during this phase transition from “Hunter/Gather” to “Hunter/Horticulturist” to “Agriculturalist” included the ability to create larger groupings leading to the first of many city-states and subsequently empires. The primary driver of this development was the ability to create wealth in the form of excess food resources, freeing individuals for specialization beyond food production in the population. From this consideration we can make the argument that the first rudimentary elements of what we think of today as business began to evolve within the social fabric.

It would be a reasonable conjecture to presume that the first elements of business in early societies took the form of services and craft, production of products, access and acquisition to goods,  and distribution of goods. While it would also be reasonable to presume that services and craft, along with the production of products came first, the access and acquisition of goods, and the distribution of those goods was unlikely to be far behind. We can place the last of these two elements of business under the heading “trade” for simplicities sake. This model of the fundamental elements of early business models can then be presented simply as a triad of services/craft … production … and trade …

 

At this time there were only a few ways business of any kind to be conducted …

In a very local model, e.g.: craftspeople serving their local communities … carpenters, potters, healers …

Creating goods to be traded directly, i.e.: barter … or later for the exchange of payment in coin made of valuable metals representing fixed value, typically in direct association with the value of the metal in which the coin was minted, e.g.: copper, bronze, silver, gold …

Trade between kingdoms for precious resources and goods … this trade was the sole privy of monarchs, even when conducted on their behalf by merchants of their choosing.

Back to Basics  For A Moment …

However, behind this model was the constant of food production as the basis of all “real” wealth – and in an Agricultural society that meant land upon which the Agriculture depended for the growing of grains, vegetables and fruits, the raising of livestock, or the hunting of game. This was the driving force behind the concept of “real estate” … of the “King’s Estate” … the land is owned by the monarch, and all others have use as decreed by the monarch with taxes applied to the rights of use, i.e.: “real estate taxation” … the “owner” of the land is NOT the one who occupies and or uses the land, the “owner” of the land is the one who can claim taxes for the right of occupation and use. The owner can also always reclaim the land for a higher use, e.g.: eminent domain.

Since the ownership and control of land, the right to occupy and use it, as well as access to the resources contained on or below it … e.g.: fauna, flora and minerals …  was (and to a great extent remains) the most essential economic driver another source of economic growth for the monarchies was conquest. As the need to expand the ownership and control of land became more dominant, to sustain the less productive inhabitants of the cities for essential resources, the monarchs were forced to expand their armies and seek new lands for these essential resources to bring back to the cities, with their aristocrats and elites, if they themselves desired to remain in control. This new necessity of supporting a growing elite class placed a new kind of pressure on the system to become more effective and efficient in the arts of war, e.g.: the Roman Legions.

Now a new economic entity sprang into existence as well. The knowledge associated with the building of war machinery and of the conduct of war. New technologies evolved to support the enterprise of war and conquest, including sophisticated communication technologies for the delivery and security of critical messages to and from afar – in this endeavor speed and utmost secrecy could mean the difference between ultimate success and utter failure. Yet, at the core of the massive campaigns conducted by the armies the issues of supplies, especially food, clothing and weapons, remained critical.

 

Supply Chains and Distribution As An Economic Cornerstone

Once again we can look to the Romans and their feats of engineering, specifically their roads. To a great extent the success of Rome can be directly traced back to its ability to build roads to distribute goods throughout the Empire.

This had two significant functions …

  1. Keeping the armies of Rome supplied so they could conquer and rule in foreign lands
  2. Providing the access to Rome necessary to bring back essential goods required to keep the Roman citizens pacified 

In the world of the Roman Empire, Rome was the first mega-city with over a million people occupying it. This population was largely comprised of aristocrats and elites, their servants and slaves, the service providers catering to them, the craftspeople providing skilled labor, and the producers and traders providing them with the goods they desired. This population created far less wealth than they consumed, yet through the control of the surrounding lands they continued to refill their coffers and exert control on the ever deepening maw of Rome’s own resource hunger. This made for a very unstable position for a Caesar unable to keep the provisions coming … so the constant need for conquest and the drain on the essential resources from the conquered to feed the Romans.

Without the technologically advanced engineering required to build the roads that led to and from Rome, and the aqueducts that kept her supplied with clean water and water to wash away the waste of millions Rome would have never survived to build such an edifice to herself. In some ways Rome in her unsatiable hunger for goods created the basis for the modern age of business that depends on the movement of goods as its lifeblood today.

 

Mid-Course Conclusions And Corrections

Once this fundamental structure was established, i.e.: the acceptance of an elite ruling class, the blueprint for modern society, modern economic structures and modern business was firmly grounded. When we look through the lens of history at a particular angle what we see is that the elite, ruling class was built on the labor of the peasant class who accepted their rule in exchange for the illusion of safety, security, freedom and the potential to pursue a life of liberty and wealth themselves. What the peasant class never realized was the extent of the bargain they were making, or the reality that they were always playing by different rules than the aristocrats and the elites.

The lessons contained in history continue to show that only those who were able to exploit the limitations, weaknesses and gaps in the ruling class’s position were ever able to become part of that class themselves. Before they crossed the chasm of becoming aristocrats and elites, many of those working the chinks in the system to their own ends would have been by definition at best outside the borders of lawfulness and at worst criminals. Staying with this same lens what we can learn is that the most efficient way to cross the chasm from commoner to elite is to do the dirty work of the elites for them, earning you passage beyond the gates yourself.

 

Modern Banking And The Fleecing Of The Common Man

We can look at the modern banking system as an example in quick review. Beginning with the Medici’s who devised a way for the Kings and Queens of a Catholic European Empire to circumvent the rule of usury to the modern age of centralized banks and fiat money the bankers have aligned themselves with the ruling class to concentrate the wealth of the system at the top. The recent activity we’ve seen throughout South and Central America beginning in the postwar era of 1950’s  through the 1980’s and on, in North America in the 1980s, 90s and most recently in the last five years leading up to a massive reformation of the banking industry with massive bailouts based on taxpayer indebtedness bloating the bottom-line of the failed banking institutions that fundamentally corrupted the system, and now the debacle threatening all of Europe with the same re-distribution of wealth upwards are perfect constructs of the mechanisms I’m pointing to here.

Essentially in a central banking environment, like those in most industrialized Western countries, and in the U.S. via the Federal Reserve System (which is neither Federal, holding any reserves, or a system in any real sense of the word), fiat money is created at the demand of a government (in the U.S. via Congressional request for increased funding outside of the requirement of raising it through direct taxation or tariffs), then the “banks” loan that money out at a ratio of many times the funding they hold in reserve (in the U.S. the ratio is about 10:1, i.e.: for every dollar a bank holds they can make a “loan” of ten dollars) and they are allowed by law to charge interest on the loan amount that is payable by debtor.

The “trick” in the system is that they are collecting interest on money they don’t have, so any interest rate is exhorbitant, creating windfall profits. A further insult on injury is that those furthest away from the lending source pay the most for the money they borrow, so the wealthiest borrow as the best rates. When you add in inflation to the sequence it immediately becomes apparent that holding as much debt as possible, borrowed at the best rates possible, becomes a pathway to increasing wealth at an accelerated rate, i.e.: you are borrowing money at a cost that’s lower than the value of the money you will pay the loan back with, and if you are close enough to the lending source you will borrow at preferential rates and your costs can be passed onto those who have to borrow further down the line. In the meantime if you purchased real assets with borrowed money they appreciate while you are paying back the borrowed money with devalued currency … a nice little spiral of wealth creation if you can “get in on it” early enough. One of the best way to “get in on it” is to become a borrower and a lender, borrowing inexpensively and lending expensively, i.e.: become the bank. (Thank you for the examples Mr. Morgan, Mr. Rockefeller, Mr. Rothschild …)

 

The Modern Entrepreneur

Now we come to the crux of my tirade (you did realize this was a tirade didn’t you?). The story that continues to get sold about modern entrepreneurial success is that it is a function of insight, courage, wisdom, brilliance … and maybe some hard work. We also “know” that it’s being in the right place at the right time, and who you know as much as what you know. FWIW I agree with much of this … to a great extent it’s true … until you get to the point where you have to work the system. At some point in the equation you have to find the chinks in the armor of the ruling class and use them to your benefit.

In a modern entrepreneurial system the ruling class is made up of at least three segments:

  • The political/governmental sector
  • The financial/banking sector
  • The existing commercial sector that you seeks to displace

To do this, and to succeed in a monumental way, you have to work the system … often at the edge of criminality, or downright stepping over that line. There are hundreds or thousands of books that document what I’m referring to here. Some of the favorite targets are mega-companies like Walmart, the mulit-national banks, the fiascos like Enron and World-Com. However, when you study the field you’ll find that there is no large business that isn’t tied in with the political and the financial players required to perpetrate their actions.

HOWEVER … this tirade isn’t about that … it’s about what you can choose instead if you so desire … BUT AT A PRICE!

I’ll lay it down simply … to use an oft quoted comment, “If you aren’t part of the solution you are part of the problem”

If you are making your bed and lying down with the players I’ve been decrying then you are part of the problem, even if you only occasionally suck at the corporate teat. You cannot claim you are only a small little guy/gal trying to make a living off of the leavings of the corporate giants and not be awash in the stench of the garbage they put out. Even if you are selective in your takings, and what you do with them – e.g.: charity and philanthropy, you are insidiously continuing the subjugation by the ruling class. Of course the lunacy is that the subjugation I refer to includes your own (I am assuming that Bill Gates, Jeff Bezos, and even Mark Zuckerberg are not reading this … although some Congressperson, Senator or even the Oval Office itself may have readers who keep an eye on things doing it for them).

So how do you opt out … where the lever to eject???

The way out of the debacle is to stop being part of the problem … become a problem for the problem.

Despite their ill-fated attempt the “Occupy” movement had the right idea fundamentally … what they left out was that they thought they were playing on a level field. What they might not have anticipated was that the folks who are much more “like them” then their masters would turn against them, i.e.: the police, law enforcement officials and legal system jumping through the hoops of the puppet masters on Wall Street and in City Hall.

Remember, once these folks get to City Hall they are no longer one of you! When politicians pass laws that discriminate preferentially for themselves they are declaring that they have entered the hall of the elites and you are not entitled to sit beside the table with them, e.g.: the healthcare bill in the U.S. that excludes Federal politicians … Congresspeople, Senators, Presidents … all get preferential treatment over the citizenry … and that was a Democratic initiative!

So you opt out …

You set up shop for the people directly … and you co-opt the resources of the elites. You use their distribution systems to get your goods to the people, you use their communication tools to spread your message, you take advantage of their financial systems to build your own position … just enough.

This last bit is critical … JUST ENOUGH … because when you cross the line to more than enough it’s very hard or impossible to come back. However, when you realize that JUST ENOUGH is really enough there’s no way to control you anymore. You don’t need or want the bigger house. You don’t need or want the prestige car. You don’t need to display your wealth to prove you possess it .. and you begin playing a different game.

The new game you play is riding the waves of the system rather than being caught by them. You set up and run your own thing. learning how to become a part of and to tap into communities of your own making … by invitation or creation. You decide independently, apart from the system’s approval, certification and licensing process, how you will run your life … and part of that is the kind of business entity you establish.

The whole “lifestyle business” movement is a part of this idea. The most basic expression of it however is a harkening back to the days of old in the marketplace, where you are serving a “local” audience that knows you and your personal credibility and mark mean something to them. Yet in the modern expression of this idea that local market is not confined by geography, but is instead comprised of islands of values, beliefs, philosophies and concepts in common. Like the first traders you become a “global” citizen belonging to many tribes, not just the one defined by and imposed upon you by the ruling elites.

Once you learn to surf the system staying on the boat just doesn’t make sense … maybe it’s time for you to consider what it will take to jump ship and take back the oceans.

 

Joseph Riggio, Ph.D., Princeton, NJ

Architect & Designer of the MythoSelf Process and Soma-Semantics

P.S. – If you want to spend some quality time finding the eject lever, opting out and landing well take a look at my page here, How I Work, check out the links for the practice areas I specialize in, and then let’s talk.

 

Mentoring In The Wild

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Getting Advice From A Great Mentor Isn’t Just Useful …
It’s Damn Indispensable If You’re Serious About Discovering What’s Possible On The Path

Mentoring is the process of renting your brain to someone else to use for a while as their own…

– Alan Weiss, Ph.D.
Author of “Million Dollar Consulting”

Mentoring 101:

One of the most significant things that you can do is to allow yourself to receive input from people who have been down the path before you, that you find yourself walking in this moment.

These people know what is on the trail. These are people who understand what is about to come up that you can’t see because it is not visible – and the only reason that they know it is there isn’t because they can see it, but because they have been there before and they know the obstacles, they know the traps on the trail. These people have seen the traps before and they can anticipate from the gleanings in the wind where they’ll be before they see them again. These people also get that even those things that are visible and recognizable to them are sometimes not visible or not available to be seen by someone who hasn’t seen them before.

On the other side of this coin these people also have the ability to sniff out opportunity in the fermentation stage, before it the process finishes and reaches completion where others become aware of it. This gives them the advantage of being where the opportunity will be before it appears. Instead of running with the pack to get to the opportunity after the fact, these people are sitting there waiting for it to appear knowing just where to be and when so by the time the pack reaches them they’re already picking their teeth from the meal they’ve already consumed – and the others are left to dine on left-overs.

Essentially a great mentor has a number of well honed qualities, including but not limited to having “been there and done that” with the t-shirt to prove it. In fact having the t-shirt just indicates the smallest essential part of the puzzle, and by itself alone would never justify adopting someone as a mentor IMO.

Far more essential than just having had the experience would be the learning that was ingested and digested along the way  – the stuff that has become part and parcel of who the mentor has become. This shows up in the skill set they possess, and even more plainly in their day t0 day behavior – especially in who they are off stage.

Finding a mentor who has moved beyond “talk the talk” to “walk the walk” may be the single most valuable thing you can do in finding and walking your own path when it coincides with they one they’ve learned to walk so well.

I want to share a little example of this unique skill set.

 

In Addition To The Jersey Devil There’s Another Incredibly Fascinating Character Living In The Pine Barrens Of New Jersey, And His Name Is Tom Brown, Jr.

There is a man in New Jersey here where I live by the name of Tom Brown. He grew up on the edge of the NJ Pine Barrens, and still makes him home there today. Tom is probably the world’s most outstanding tracker.

As a young boy Tom made a decision that he was going to be a tracker. He spent every free minute he had, after school, on weekends, holidays, over the summers … learning how to track from an old Indian scout who was the grandfather of one of his best friends. They went out tracking together from the time he was 15 years old learning how to find animal tracks in the fields, in the woods and along the streams where he lived.

When he graduated high-school, around the age of eighteen, his father confronted him with a choice; “… go to college and get a degree, or get a job and go to work.” Tom choose getting a job … he would be a tracker. The way he tells the story this didn’t necessarily go over so well in his home at the time, but in a few years he proved his ability and was consulting with police, law enforcement and rescue teams around the United States based on his amazing skills as a tracker.

By the time that I met Tom he was in his 50’s, and was incredibly accomplished. He had worked with law enforcement agencies around the world teaching tracking skills. He ran a tracking school in a place called Asbury, NJ on the edge of the Pine Barrens. which is a remote wilderness area near the southern center of state of New Jersey; and he taking executives and put them through a week or two week program where he would teach them wilderness skills. He specifically emphasized the idea of tracking and noticing for information that was present, but to the untrained eye invisible.

I spent a weekend with Tom learning tracking with him and there was a moment in which we walked around a field that surrounded a parking lot. At the edge where the field met the asphalt of the parking lot there was an area about 10 feet or 12 feet wide where the asphalt of the parking lot turned into dirt, the dirt turned into grass, and then the grass entered into the woods. Walking at a normal walking pace, let’s say about 3 mph, Tom was able to walk the perimeter of the parking lot and point out tracks that were present there – squirrel, fox, rabbit. When I looked down what I saw was dirt, dirt, dirt.

Then we slowed down, and Tom took me down to ground level, he put my hand in the track and said, “Feel this. Can you feel that indentation?” Of course it was there and I said I could. He said, “Look at those two little dots. Do you see them near the indentation?” When he pointed them out I could see the two little dots. He told me they were the nails of a squirrel. He could see moving at a walking pace around the perimeter of the parking lot two little dots in the ground that were the nails of a squirrel!

Tom knew that those two little dots he had seen meant that the squirrel that had left those tracks behind was running away from something, because he could see from the length of the squirrel’s stride that it had been running frantically. We then went backwards and he showed me where the fox had been at the edge of the woods, because the grass had been beaten down in a particular way. We went on this way for about 1 ½ hours. It was stunning. Tom could see what had happened in that small portion of the wilderness several hours before like he was looking at in unfolding before him in the moment.

The world that Tom Brown lives in and was obvious to him … inescapably obvious … was completely invisible to me. After two hours with him I was aware that there was a world out there that was still invisible to me, but I was no longer ignorant of its presence. If I chose to spend two, or three, or five years with Tom maybe I could get to the point where I could walk around the perimeter of a parking lot and see the trail, and the markings of the animals that had been there before – but I couldn’t do it that morning.

Despite the fact that I now know there are animal tracks and a story there in the dirt between the parking lot and the grass I still can’t do it. I don’t have the training, or the skills, or the knowledge to even know what to look for in that small space. But if Tom were walking with me on a trail I know there would be so much more present for me in my world than I ever experience as being present for me when I am just walking that trail by myself.

 

Walking Along The Trail With A Mentor Of Your Own

The same thing is true of walking along any mentor who knows the trail they’ve lived as well as Tom knows how to track. That domain of expertise can be mentoring in the area of business development, the area of specific skills development or it can be in the area of building a life that works. It doesn’t matter what area of domain of expertise the mentor possesses, if they are skillful enough they live in a world that the untrained person doesn’t ever see, let alone experience. Yet, it would be possible to experience the world in that way if they had a mentor who knew how to find the tracks, signals and signs, and was pointing them out along the way.

Mentors see things that are there, and obvious to the trained eye, that simply don’t exist for the person who doesn’t have the skill set they possess. They create leverage in the possibility of learning and growing that would be impossible to access without that expertise. Mentors make this kind of advanced learning and acuity available to you, and I know of no substitute for it. At every turn when I’ve wanted to take the next steps on my own life’s journey, first before all else, I’ve found myself a brilliant mentor to walk the path with me. I still surround myself with mentors, young and old as necessary and required, to guide the steps I take as continue moving forward in the adventure.

If  you are really serious and you really intend to make enormous leaps and gains in any area of skill development or improvement in your life … and raise the level of your performance beyond the capacity that you currently possess by performing on your own … find someone who has been there before and to engage them as a mentor doing whatever it takes to allow them to take you to where you aren’t yet, and they have already been.

 

A Small Bit Of Friendly Closing Advice

(NOTE: This Bit Is Only For Those Who Are Serious & Thick Skinned Enough For The Raw Truth … Proceed With Caution)

I’m sure you get that the message here has been that when you decide to make the leap of faith required to commit and engage on a path of your own … one you haven’t yet mastered but sense a compulsion to pursue … start by finding a mentor who can and will guide you in the journey you’re about to undertake. What I’d like to share in closing from what I’ve learned about taking this advice myself would be this …

Start by keeping your mouth shut. I know some of you will find that advice harsh. Many of you reading this have likely grown up in a culture where you’ve been taught that “learning should be a participative activity” and that “you should be a partner in the learning experience” and other such B.S. that doesn’t apply here at all IMO. In the mentoring relationship the mentor has the expertise that you do not yet possess, but desire to own for yourself. The fastest way to build the skills you desire for yourself almost always means doing what your told (AGGGHHHH!!!! I know you hate that one!).

NOW … AFTER YOU’VE DONE IT (unquestioningly) … ask all your questions … make all your comments … have all the disagreements you need or want. Because AFTER you’ve done it you’ll have an experience you can talk about that has depth and value … instead of engaging in mental masturbation about what you think but don’t know yet.