What are some tips for becoming successful?

I helped six people become millionaires, 32 to double their income into six figures, 300+ to find and change to their ideal career, and one to become a professional golfer. Here are a couple of the things I taught them.

1. Swim and float. The river will take you a long way, but it’s not likely to land you where want to go. 

• Know where you want to go - The river of life will take you wherever the hell it wants to, unless you decide otherwise. If you don’t know where you want to go, get a job and suffer. At least your owner will have a nice life. Or get a life coach and figure it out. Invest in a good life coach after you get a car, but before you buy a house. It’s important to know where you’re going. 
• Where you want to go - You want to do what you love. (Duh.) Do what you love and the money will come. Make a plan to get there from where you are. Don’t just quit your job and life, and walk away. Figure out how to make a smooth transition, but if you’ve been working at it for more than two years, just get off the river and walk away, or you’ll never get there. 
• Swim some - If you swim against the current, you’ll be too exhausted to enjoy life. If you swim with the current, you’ll soon be out to sea. 
• Float some - You should be able to float to a good starting point for your successful life by making successive course corrections - swimming some. 

The idea is that, if you’re on the river, some other force is running your life. You have tremendous power, and you’ll realize that as soon as you start for where you want to go. One of my millionaires was on the river for 25 years, but as soon as he got focused, he got there in two years. 

2. Eliminate all negativity - internal and external.

• Your boss fired you and told you what a total failure you are. Let me tell you: Your boss is mean and a total failure. Every human being I ever met has great value - very often a whole lot more than they give themselves credit for. Any boss who doesn’t recognize that shouldn’t be a boss. 
• There are a lot of possibilities that are passing you by. All you need is one. Think like a rock: Let all the No’s roll off you like rain. They simply don’t matter. The Yes’s are the only thing that count. 
• You choose your own thoughts and feelings. If you’re not choosing them, then any piece of crap can float into your worldview. If you begin to notice a lot of crap in your mind, then you know it’s time to start making hugely different choices. 

3. Insist on the best, and you’ll likely get it.

• People talk about how they have to choose between bad and worse. Bullshit! 
• Know the difference between power and force. Force is from outside. Power is from inside. Nobody can force you to make a bad choice. You have to the power to find (or create) a better option and to choose it. People who do this make big money. 
• Think! People don’t take time to think, so they end up floating down the river of life, and every so often some sewage gets poured on them. That shouldn’t be a surprise. Take time to think. Make choices that take you where you want to go. 
• It is always easy to choose the best in life. Take a moment to think about what is coming into your life. How does it feel? If it feels like joy, choose that! If it doesn’t, always find a different choice, one that brings joy. If you don’t think that’s possible, it’s because you never tried it, and you’re too concerned about everybody else and their unending opinions. 

4. Work smart, work hard.

• Work smart: See that stuff up above. Oh, and never stop reading or learning. 
• Work hard: If you’re working smart, it’s easy to work hard and long with a minimum of unhealthy stress. Healthy stress actually makes you feel good, like after you finish a run or work on some exciting idea till 3 in the morning. If you’re not doing what you love, it will always be unhealthy. 

Well, this is turning into a book. Sorry so long. If you get the direction of this, most of the rest will fall into place. Go for it! Don’t let anything hold you back. - Christopher Aune, (c) 2018

Then comes real living

We interpret what we see through the filter of what we believe. 

What would it be like if we could only see? What if there were no filter and no interpretation. Could we be sure without first trying out what we have thought? 

So, while meditation starts with mind, it advances with action, and concludes with desired real outcome. 

Surrender is to reality, but human fulfillment doesn’t end with surrender. It is only the beginning. Then comes real living. 

- Christopher Aune, Thursday Sept. 13, 2018

Ourself is a perfectly valid world

“[T]hese ancients taught that prayer was participation in God’s love, the activity that takes us out of ourselves.”  — Diana Butler Bass, A People’s History of Christianity: The Other Side of the Story

I’ve been promoting the use of the word “ourself.” People seem to think that multiple people is always a plurality, but on the deepest most basic level we are one. On the level of union with God, every person is participating and interacting in the world. 

So, when we talk about people and unity - all individuals as a unified whole - we speak about “ourself” as a single entity, instead of the plural ourselves. "We need to take care of ourself." "As I was meditating, I became more aware of ourself." "Nothing fills the hole in our soul better than ourself." 

When we meditate, we leave behind worldly concerns - our ego struggles: It takes us out of our individual selves. 

When we meditate, we go deeply into our truest self and find that we can sense our individual self at a very basic level. In that self-awareness, we become aware of ourself on an expanded, interconnected, even integrated level. 

It is often our struggle to maintain our individuality - our personal ego - that holds us back from admitting ourself, from releasing our individual cares, and blending into conscious awareness of ourself.  We are afraid to release our troubles for fear that we would lose our very self; but the truth is that, by releasing our troubles, we melt into the warm, sweet syrup of Ourself.