Chapter 2 - The Magical Meeting | Begin with “I” by Rohit Sethi - Self Help Learning PDF Download

 The magical meeting

Life moves on, day-in day-out. The questions in Ron’s head become louder with each passing day. On one of the days, Ron gets to know that a classmate from his MBA program has resigned from his job and is going to US for higher studies in the area of his interest. For reasons beyond his comprehension, Ron begins to feel disturbed. Since he has always liked his classmate, he is unable to figure out why he feels bad about this news at all.
Ron helplessly tosses and turns in bed with no hint of sleep. He knows this lack of sleep. It happened to him in the past on nights when he was too anxious. However, the frequency seems to have increased considerably in the last few months primarily triggered by new pieces of similar information. In his moments of helplessness and anxiety about his feeling of being ‘stuck’ and not being able to foresee an appealing future for himself, Ron starts to frantically challenge his faith and pray that some path be shown, to get him out of this life of constantly ‘dragging himself ’ through the days.

In a trance-like state, half-asleep, half-awake, Ron feels a sudden rush of energy and certainty, as if all his prayers have been answered. A gentleman stands before him – who to be described in the least words, would be the ideal version of Ron – smart, elegant, fit, and most importantly carrying a happy glow on his face. Ron recognizes this glow. He used to have it until a decade ago. He is absolutely startled to see this person smile at him. He shouts out loud in astonishment, “Hey, who are you?”

“Ron, I know you are surprised to see me! I was expecting this reaction. Do not be surprised. I am you, five years into the future, from where you are right now. To give me a name, you can call me Ron+! If we decide to call me anything else, then you will start to disassociate me from yourself, convincing yourself that it is impossible to get here!”

“I am you five years into the future, from where you are right now.”

“Ron+! I like that name! I can see that you are quite an enhanced version of my current self, so let’s stick to it. What do you do these days, how’s your life?” “My life is  excellent! I like my progress in most areas of life and I work hard to maintain and push it further. I wanted to change my job five years ago but decided not to. I changed my attitude instead and I realized that I started to like the same company and the same people more than I ever did before. I stuck around, worked even harder, got two promotions and now handle a fairly senior role for them. On the health front, I progressed with my physical training and have been running full marathons for the last couple of years.”
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Figure 6: Ron+’s description “Wow! That sounds great! On the personal front, did you manage to find someone?” “Yes! I got married three years ago to my ‘perfect’ partner! She is exactly the one who I always imagined myself settling down with!” “Wow, that’s super! But really, I could have never imagined myself to be 

“Wow! That sounds great! On the personal front, did you manage to find someone?” “Yes! I got married three years ago to my ‘perfect’ partner! She is exactly the one who I always imagined myself settling down with!” “Wow, that’s super! But really, I could have never imagined myself to be ever like you!” “That’s fine Ron. It is quite normal. Most people are unable to visualize their best selves and that is one of the key reasons for why they are not inspired to get there. I understand you have been struggling with some questions in your mind. I am here to help you find the answers. In fact, you have all of them within you already. I will support you in bringing them forth. Let me start by telling you that none of the questions you are struggling with is new. These questions have been around for centuries and the approaches to get to the answers are already well-documented.”

“Most people are unable to visualize their best selves and that is one of the key reasons for why they are not inspired to get there.”

“Well, if the answers are available so easily, why do I see many people around me struggling to find them?” “Tell me this. Ron, do you think wisdom can be shared?”

“Hmm… Not sure, may be not!” “You are right! It is knowledge that can be shared. That’s what I will share with you. Wisdom is more like a Do-It-Yourself (DIY) project. The documented principles can show you the path. It is you who will have to walk the path to get your answers. Every individual on this earth is unique and very different from anyone else that has been here and will ever be, and so are the answers for every individual.”

“The documented principles can show you the path. It is you who will have to walk the path to get your answers.”

“Ron+, how did you become the way you are?” “It’s not rocket science! In fact, rocket science might just be the only thing that is truly rocket science. You can say that I was living a life exactly like yours five years ago, struggling to accept the meaninglessness of the whole thing and having a zillion questions on my mind – the same ones as you have now. And one day, a key insight struck me – ‘I was looking for answers in places where they did not exist.’” 

“I was looking for answers in places where they did not exist.”

“Oh! What do you mean? Can you elaborate?” “Sure. Leading my usual day-to-day life and expecting answers to my questions from the people and environment around me was not the right approach. I decided to make a change in the places I was looking for the answers in, and the people I was discussing my questions with. On my single-minded quest for the answers, I became a voracious reader. I started reading books in self-help, psychology, philosophy, personal development, leadership, communication, mind-body connection, spirituality, and autobiographies and biographies of successful people. I listened to audio tapes, watched interviews, and participated in multiple training programs. 

In fact, I tried every source I could, to hear from the people who seemed to genuinely lead more fulfilling and enriched lives.” “Hmm… and what did you find?” “I confirmed my understanding of the principles and began testing some of the tools and strategies in my own life, and guess what? With consistent application, they seemed to produce results! On a daily basis, what we live are not our lives, but really our habits and patterns. It is estimated that 90% of our daily decisions are governed by our habits. It is perfectly fine to live our habits as they make our lives simpler and we do not need to take every small decision every day. However, the challenge begins when some of the habits that we live, do not serve us constructively anymore. The key then is to identify the habits that are not serving us well and to replace them with the ones that will. It takes a while to build initial momentum, but once you have it, it grows exponentially and you can see yourself transforming quickly across all areas of life. So, to summarize – I understood the principles, acquired the time-tested tools and strategies, began to apply them in my life on a consistent basis and still continue to do that.”

“It is estimated that 90% of our daily decisions are governed by habits. It is perfectly fine to live our habits. The challenge begins when some of the habits that we live do not serve us constructively anymore.”

“So, Ron+, since you know so much, can you tell me how I can find meaning in my life?” “Wow! You are really eager to get into deep stuff directly. I am kidding! I don’t understand why people make such a big deal out of ‘finding meaning in life’ and go on a search for some ‘standard’ meaning. My understanding and experience says that we can consider flipping our perspective. We can stop asking ‘What is the meaning of my life?’ or ‘What does life have to offer me?’, and instead ask, ‘What meaning can I bring to my life?’ or ‘How can I make this world better with my presence?’ The former two are ‘receiving’ kind of questions while the latter two reflect a more ‘giving’ attitude. And always remember, the answers we get in life are a function of the questions we ask. Ask better questions, and you will get better answers!”

“I don’t understand why people make such a big deal out of ‘finding meaning in life’ and go on this search for some ‘standard’ meaning.”

“Oh! What do you mean to say exactly?” “Well, my sincere apologies if I sound harsh but people all around seem to have massive expectations on how the world should be and how everyone around them should behave. Day-in and day-out they claim that they are feeling stuck, are bored and act grumpy as if life owes them all the comfort, love, joy and contentment. We both know that feeling – you are there now and I been there few years ago.” “Hmm, so what might be a better approach?” “Why don’t we all just focus on becoming our best selves, and as we become more, contribute back by sharing the learnings from our growth with others so that they too can experience the same? And trust me; there is no end to this process. It is already a lot of work to do. It is fundamental nature of the human spirit to long for growth. In fact, the universe is constantly expanding too. We humans feel alive when we are growing. Grow or die is the law of the universe. As Anthony Robbins said, ‘Anything that isn’t growing, is dying!’” “People tend to take the feeling of getting stuck and being bored at face value and do not dig deeper to understand where it comes from. In my view, this feeling signals two things (i) all activities that we do in our lives have become too convenient, and (ii) there is too much comfort and certainty indicating that we have stopped growing (or beginning to die!) and that we need to challenge ourselves in newer ways to stimulate growth again. No matter where we are in our lives, there is always scope to go the next level in each of our life areas. And as we grow and expand, we can continue to share the fruits of our success and our learnings with others on the way. Let me tell you about the key life areas to help you structure your thinking.”

“How about ‘Emotional’ Ron+… Are you excluding it for a reason?” “Yes. In some other sources though, you will find it listed as a life area. For me, it is directly impacted by how you are doing across all these other areas. I do not treat it as a standalone area. It is more like the ultimate measure of how you are doing overall. If you consistently feel negative or disempowering emotions, it wouldn’t really matter how well you are doing in other areas. Don’t all of us want to feel good or feel positive emotions most of the time and that’s why we do all that we do in the other life areas?” “Yes, I see what you mean. These things sound nice, Ron+! But, life is tough. There are unexpected ups and downs that one has to deal with!” “Ron, I hear you that life is tough, but compared to what? Let me tell you this. Most of our suffering in life comes from just one thing: our assumptions or, say, our judgments, it’s the same thing. We want things to show up and remain in the ways that we like. Whenever we do not like what shows up, we call it a ‘problem’, although it might just be an equally probable outcome of some event. A better practice is to call it a ‘challenge’. Sometimes, just by choosing to call something differently, we can start to feel differently about it. We can talk about this in more detail later.”

“I hear you that life is tough, but compared to what?”

“Remember, there is no growth without challenges. How can you experience happiness as happiness if there was no sadness? How can you appreciate a high if there was no low? Would you know white as a distinct color if everything was white? Change is a law of nature and although we are becoming better at predicting it, we still cannot get it accurate all the time. We are constantly trying to create certainty in an uncertain world, however, remember that the only absolute certainty that we can create is within ourselves, it cannot come from outside.” 

“We are constantly trying to create certainty in an uncertain world, however, remember that the only absolute certainty that we can create is within ourselves, it cannot come from outside.”

“You make sense, Ron+. I appreciate all that you are saying, but trust me, even if someone forced me to visualize myself five years from now, I would not have been able to visualize myself to be the way you are!” “Ron, as I said, it is well-established that people are unable to freely visualize their ideal best self without a negative influence from their current situation and the views they have about themselves and the world in general. Another effect that operates here is as stated by Peter Drucker when he said ‘Most people tend to overestimate what they can achieve in one year and underestimate what they can achieve in five years.’ In fact, going by empirical evidence, over a five-year time horizon, even seemingly impossible feats can be made possible. You must have come across the 10,000 hours rule to mastery, ‘Once you put in 10,000 hours consistently into something, you tend to achieve mastery in that area’. A disciplined five hours put in every day for five years will get you quite close to that.”

“People are unable to freely visualize their ideal best self without a negative influence from their current situation and the views they have about themselves and the world in general.”

“As a starting point for our transformation, we need to visualize our best selves living our dream lives. Only that can provide us with a strong enough ‘why’ to start making changes to our comfortable lives and keeping at them even when the going gets tough. And do remember that one needs to really let the imagination go free and imagine the best for us in each of the life areas. Additionally, it is absolutely required that we write the goals down as writing engages the motor part of the body as well thereby committing more of the person than just the mind engaging in day-dreaming or wishful thinking. We can talk more about this in the coming days.” “Ron+, I came across some self-help and personal development books and the principles really seemed to be common sense. But when I tried to apply some in my busy day-to-day life, they caused so much disruption. I felt totally overwhelmed, and then I stopped.” “Ron, you are right! The principles are not something esoteric or secretive. They are fairly simple with the real challenge being in execution.  Let me tell you some reasons why they might not work:

1. Trying them out without fully trusting them – Most people are so skeptical about the entire concept of self-help and personal development that they never trust the principles enough. They start to experiment with them but can never really let go and absorb the advice fully. And so, what happens next is something you can very well imagine. Rememberthis Ron, half-hearted attempts do not produce half of the results – they produce no results at all!

“Half-hearted attempts do not produce half of the results – they produce no results at all!”

2. Trying to change too many things at the same time – These books typically are repositories of the authors’ insights and wisdom gathered over decades of experience. They tend to be quite rich in knowledge and can make you feel that there are hundreds of things that you should do to get the results you want. It is true that there is no single magical strategy that can transform your life overnight. A holistic transformation requires you to work in multiple areas. However, the good news is that once sufficient momentum is created, the progress in each area starts to feed into others. Trying to do too many things at the same time leads to a major deviation from your normal routine, creating so much disturbance that you strongly get pulled towards your initial patterns.

3. Having an external rather than internal focus – Some more techniqueoriented literature, especially the productivity and efficiency type, focuses on encouraging people to use a number of tools and techniques on the outside and change their behaviors, without really making any shifts inside of them. People start but lose momentum quickly as they lack a strong enough ‘why’ for doing it in the first place.

4. Ignoring how people can leverage peer support – We are social beings and spend most of our time in the company of other people, that is, family, colleagues, friends and acquaintances. Our peers exert a massive influence on our choices and behaviors. Humans are driven by the urge to ‘fit in’ and ‘conform’, and hence our choices largely tend to be a function of our peer group. When people first begin to make changes to their lives using personal development techniques, a strong resistance comes from the peer group. If we can learn how to get the peer group on our side by informing them in advance on what we are trying to achieve and that we would require their support, we can get them to be on our side.”

“Humans are driven by the urge to ‘fit in’ and ‘conform’, and hence our choices largely tend to be a function of our peer group.”

“And I guess anyone who shows resistance even despite that, should not be in our peer group anyway, right?” “Indeed! I have seen people who start trying this stuff and when it doesn’t work, they adopt a view that, ‘this self-help stuff doesn’t work!’ What they are essentially saying is that, ‘this self-help stuff doesn’t work for me!’ and that is primarily because they did not get the right enablers and environment for it to work. However, what really disappoints me is something bigger. When people try these techniques and are unable to succeed, they lose more than just the benefits they could have acquired from them. Trying something and not succeeding at it tends to reduce our self-esteem, which can then impact us in all areas for the rest of our lives. We can cover much more on the topic of self-esteem at a later stage.”

“I have seen people who start trying this stuff and when it doesn’t work, they adopt a view that, ‘this self-help stuff doesn’t work!’ What they are essentially saying is that, ‘this self-help stuff doesn’t work for me!’”

“Ron, the universe works on laws, some of which we learnt at school. There is one more law that everyone needs to be aware of: the law of intention. There are many authors who write about this. It is unfortunate that most people continue to live their lives without understanding this law. I say unfortunate because the law does not stop operating for people who do not know about it or do not agree with it. The law continues to operate and people continue to produce the results they do not want without even understanding the root cause behind it. Whenever people tell me that they tried applying the law of intention and that it did not work, I ask them, ‘Be fully honest, what is it that you felt with more certainty – the desire to have that new house or car or job or relationship or anything that you wanted or the belief that you cannot have it?’ In most cases, the feeling of ‘not being able to’ is stronger than the ‘want to have’, which inevitably invalidates your expressed intent. We all live with massive contradictions and resistances within us that inhibit the process of manifestation by negating our power of desire to a large extent.”

“Even if you do not know of them or do not agree with them, the laws of the universe apply to you.”

“So, are you saying that we create our own realities?” “Well, most people typically challenge the assertion that they create their own realities. It is perfectly logical for them to reject it as they do not understand it fully. To clarify it more, I can tell you that people create their own reality but they do it from heightened states of awareness or consciousness. And, since most people hardly ever get there, they are not able to create their realities and hence do not believe in the operation of the law of intention.”

“Hmm… Can you tell more?”

“Sure, there is a unique frame of mind that makes creation possible. Let me describe it for you:

1. You are fine with what you have in your life at the moment and feel grateful for it – Consider this. If you are not grateful about your current situation and feel disgusted with what the law of creation has created for you, how do you expect to get it on your side and create the things that you want for yourself in the future?

2. You have clearly imagined what you desire – A clear command is quite important for the law of intention. The law of creation responds only to the extent of clarity that is provided in the first place.

3. You think and talk in positives – The law of intention does not understand ‘negatives’. For example, if I ask you to visualize your mom, you instantly picture her. Now, if I ask you not to visualize your mom, you still picture her. Our brain works with images and there is no associated picture for ‘not’. So, if you are constantly saying that ‘I should not meet with an accident’ or ‘I should not live in poverty’ or ‘I should not get sick’, then you can very well guess what you are attracting in your life!

4. You live in positive anticipation – You live with a constant sense of hope that all good things you aspire for are on their way already and would be presented to you at the right moment. When someone asks you a question about something you want, for instance, say ‘Do you have kids?’ or ‘Have you traveled to the States?’, you realize that saying ‘Not yet’ is a better response than saying ‘No’.

5. You show complete trust and faith in the law – There is an element of time lag between creation and manifestation that people do not understand fully. Once the request has been made, we need to carry on with our normal lives without getting impatient, but while maintaining a certainty within us all along, that whatever we asked for is on its way. To manifest in the material world, things require a certain amount of time, for instance, to expect great returns from your business, or to achieve a top position in your job, patience, hard-work and experience are necessary, all of which require time. The key is to not take the delays as denials.”

“But Ron+, this optimal creation state that you are describing… I see that it is quite tough to get there!”

“Yes it is… So essentially, what doesn’t work for people is not the law of intention, but getting into the creation state. Imagine if you could get the creative force on your side, would it not be a better life experience if you walk with the advantage of knowing that you will end up as a winner eventually?”

“Sure! It seems that you can really help me understand these things well.”

“Ron, since our lives run on autopilot most of the time, it is difficult for us to see how we take decisions and their corresponding impact on our lives. The ability to step out and look at ourselves like a third-person would is a key technique for transformation. Living our day-to-day lives of stress, confusion, negativity, and boredom, we create so much mental fog in our minds that makes it difficult for us to think clearly about the adverse impact of some of the things that we do or decisions that we take.”

“The ability to take your consciousness out of your body and look at yourself like a third-person would is a key technique for transformation.”

“It is here that we can explain the existence of and continuing growth in the profession of coaching. A coach is typically a person with whom you can be fully honest and this person is readily available for you to have a purposeful conversation anytime you want. As an immediate impact, coaching conversations help you clear the mental fog, regain perspective and make better decisions. As a long-term benefit, coaching conversations help you clarify your vision, adapt your current life for it to be aligned with your vision and goals, uncover your unconscious behaviors and patterns, overcome your fears, monitor your progress and stay focused on your path.” “I am sure you will agree with me on the assertion that most highperforming people work with personal, life, results, and performance or success coaches. Does it not sound counter-intuitive that these people are so successful and still have coaches while you, on your way there, with a long way to go, do not? In fact, a good coach can help you cut some years and considerable pain off on your way to wherever you want to reach.”

“Most highly successful people have success coaches. They are already successful; do they need these coaches more than you do?”

“Ron+, you make total sense!”

“Since it is tough for people who are untrained in this, if you allow me, I can offer to stay with you for ten days. I can look at your life and support you through your daily decisions. Ron, success is not about doing more or newer things – sometimes it is just about doing less or fewer of the older ones. I will listen to what you say to yourself in your head and no one besides you will be able to see me. Ron, I can provide you with all what you need, but in the end, it is your journey and you need to own it. All change on the outside gets initiated on the inside first. I am extending my most sincere invitation to you to come with me on this journey. Give yourself the gift of these ten days and then decide if you want to continue or discard all that we discuss and return to your life as usual.”

“I can provide you with all what you need, but in the end, it is your journey and you need to own it”

“Sure! Let’s do this… I am excited!”

“Great! Let’s begin with ‘I’… Your journey into Individuality, Inspiration and Intensity!”