The Gamble

"One secret of success in life is for a man to be ready for his opportunity when it comes."  Benjamin Disraeli

"You got to know when to hold 'em, know when to fold 'em, know when to walk away and know when to run.  You never count your money when you're sitting at the table.  There'll be time enough for counting when the dealin's done."  Kenny Rogers

Life is a gamble; life is an opportunity.  And we hold all the cards.  So it is all up to us and where we chose to focus.  While Lady Luck may appear to play a part in our cards, when the dealing is done all the players wear our face.  If you have been following this blog, then you will be familiar with the part that lemons play in our life quest.  How they give us clues as to what is really going on beneath the surface.  How they blow our excuses as to why such and such or so and so is really responsible and we are just the innocent victims of whatever.  If winning is your game and extraordinary is your destination, then ya gotta walk away and run from that kind of thinking. While Lady Luck may seem fickle, she can be wooed.

Our intention is everything.  With our intention, we can and do shape the hand life deals us.  Sounds simple enough so how does it really work?  What does extraordinary look like to you?  If this is to be your year, what will the hand you are holding look like December 31?  Go ahead be audacious, be bold, be daring - gamble with that image.  Be specific, the more specific the better.

Now while you are imagining, go do something as mundane as write down those cards that you want to be holding come year's end.  Yeah that's right, paper and pencil and write them down, be specific.  I know you have heard this before and probably just decided that you could keep your goals in your head. No need to get so hard core about it to actually have to write them down.  You know that all depends on if you are just "a wishing and a hoping" or if you are playing to win.   This time, if you are truly serious about playing a winning hand that you control, write down what those winning cards look like.   Lee Iacocca said: "The discipline of writing something down is the first step towards making it happen."

Then get even more serious with yourself and break these goals down into doable baby steps that you can and will do everyday towards making them a reality.  Be realistic, if the leap you are looking to make is a mighty one, then be gentle with yourself and factor in success by breaking it into smaller jumps that you can attain and have several smaller celebrations along the way to keep you moving forward.  While it is important to have specific goals, don't adhere to a rigid specific path to get there.  Hold the cards loosely and let the process you have set in motion morph along the way and take you where you need to go. Exhale, this is suppose to be fun.   

Use the skills we have been exploring in these blogs on our journey to extraordinary to make sure that the cards you are working towards will really bring you what you think they will. This is vital. If you are traveling to a specific place, then you need the correct map to get you there and that is what goal setting is - writing a blueprint or map for your destination. Jim Rohn really captures the essence of the lemonade skills we have been exploring in the various blogs - discipline, impeccability, service to others, humility, personal growth, gratitude, true success - in this quote: "Set a goal to become a millionaire for what it makes of you to achieve it. Do it for the skills you have to learn and the person you have to become."  Money as an end in itself will never truly bring satisfaction, contentment and is not true wealth.  Money as a means to an end will allow you to partake of the true wealth of life.  At the end of the journey, you will have the satisfaction of having lived a balanced full life, of having taken the trip to extraordinary.  When aiming for particular outcomes, keep in mind that they will change you in the process. Use discernment and wisdom to make sure that is where your happiness lies.

Let's demystify this process so we understand the method behind becoming a card shark of life.  Every moment of everyday, we are bombarded by more stimuli than we can even fathom.  To survive, we have learned in our lives to filter out what we consider to be important - pay attention now - and what can be ignored.  When my children were small, I trained myself to filter out all the messy noisy unimportant stimuli so that I could read.  It was only  certain "danger-check-in-now" signals that could pull me out of a good book.  This is probably why mothers get the reputation of having eyes in the back of their heads.  We subconsciously train ourselves to ignore most of the overwhelming stimuli that children produce and focus on what is necessary.  While that can be a good thing, it can also work against us depending upon how we have chosen to label the good, the bad and the ugly.

Least you think that this is all hearsay, we actually have a filtering system built into our brains called the reticular activating system or "ras."  This group of nerves at the base of our skulls senses stimuli and sorts it out as to what we have focused on in the past as important or not important.  This is like a personal assistant who sits at the gateway to our brain and only admits what we have programmed it to in the past.  So the old adage that to change your life, you have to change your thinking has validity and this is the way that it works.  American philosopher and psychologist, William James said: "The greatest discovery of my generation is that a human being can alter his life by altering his attitude of mind!"  That is why writing down your goals and then focusing on them everyday and working towards them is so important.  You are reprogramming your "ras" personal assistant to allow in the stimuli that is necessary for you to reach your new goals.  The more radical the changes that you wish to effect in your life, the more disciplined you are going to have to be in reprogramming your "ras" personal assistant.  If you want to reach extraordinary, then no more junk thoughts or negative whining thinking.  Sharpen your intention and will and focus on what that winning hand looks like. 

We have all had the experience of discovering some new thing like a friend of mine who got interested in carousal horses and was astonished to find the depth of books, information, groups that were already involved with this subject.  Because she had not been interested previously, her "ras" personal assistant had filtered out all that stimuli.  It was only after she gave the go ahead to let this information in by her new focus on the subject that she became aware of this whole new world.  

Makes me wonder how much of the life I want I have filtered out because of preconceived notions or erroneous ideas or not being serious enough with my objectives.  Not to overdo the lemon thing, that is why when it started pelting lemons in my life, remember I am the hesitant saint and not the most open of learners, I had to learn to be thankful for them and look beyond the dissolution of my life and make lemonade.  What I discovered was a whole new world of opportunity and life that awaited me.  When my husband was downsized, a new business opportunity that we could do together surfaced with a company that allows us to build substantial residual income in a cooperative collaborative environment.  While there are still residues of the old life that remain and the transition to extraordinary is not totally complete - nor will it ever really be -we are on our way.  Now that I understand my "ras" personal assistant better and how it works, I am going to be more actively programming it to draw the energy into my life that I want.  While Kenny Rogers song "The Gambler" has long been a life traveling song of mine, I am finally understanding how to determine what cards to hold, fold, walk away or run from.  I have every intention that this is my year to be holding the hand that I want on December 31.  No more wishing for Lady Luck to shine on me, I have my new "ras" personal assistant.  

As I said in my "Welcome" blog, travel with me to extraordinary as we discover new ways of thinking, living and doing business.  If you are looking for a new opportunity in your life, then let's explore what is out there together.  There are some really exciting new concepts of work emerging where by working together we all benefit.  I am excited about the hand that I will be holding come December 31 now that I finally understand the power of my "ras" personal assistant to let in the extraordinary amazement of life.  It was there all the time but somehow I just did not believe it was possible.  By disciplining myself to write down my goals and to daily work towards them, I'll be staying for the counting when this year's dealin's done.