DO YOU KNOW THE FEELING YOU GET WHEN YOU HAVE COMPLETED A BIG JOB AND  YOU TURN TO WITNESS YOUR MAGNIFICENT ACCOMPLISHMENT, ONE THAT MAY HAVE TAKEN MONTHS TO FINISH? WHAT A GREAT FEELING HAVING OVERCOME ALL THOSE OBSTACLES!

WELL, THE REAL FACT IS THAT BY YOURSELF YOU MAY HAVE PLAYED ONLY A SMALL PART IN MAKING A BURNING DESIRE BECOME REALITY. MAYBE IT WAS YOUR IDEA OR YOUR PART WAS ORGINAZING EVERY ONE INVOLVED TO WORK IN HARMONY TO COMPLETE THE TASK. IT COULD HAVE BEEN YOUR RESPONSIBILITY TO MAKE THE PRODUCT LOOK PERFECT OR TO PUSH THE WHOLE ENDEAVOR OVER THE LAST BUMP IN THE ROAD.

WHETHER YOU KNOW IT OR NOT, YOU WERE PART OF A TEAM, AND IF THIS TEAM WORKS TOGETHER ON MORE THAN ONE PROJECT, IT IS CALLED A MASTERMIND GROUP. THE MASTERMIND GROUP CREATES POWER —  WHICH IS NECESSARY TO ACCOMPLISH ANY GOAL. ONE NECESSARY INGREDIENT IS POWER. THIS POWER IS APPLIED BY THE MASTERMIND GROUP.  IDEAS AND PLANS ARE  USELESS WITHOUT SUFFICIENT POWER TO TRANSLATE THEM INTO ACTION. HOW MAY AN INDIVIDUAL ATTAIN AND APPLY POWER?

POWER MAY BE DEFINED AS “ORGANIZED AND INTELLIGENTLY DIRECTED KNOWLEDGE.” ORGANIZED EFFORT IS PRODUCED THROUGH THE COORDINATION OF THE EFFORT OF TWO OR MORE PEOPLE WHO WORK TOWARD A DEFINITE END IN A SPIRIT OF HARMONY.

THE MASTERMIND GROUP PROVIDES INFINITE INTELLIGENCE, CREATIVE IMAGINATION, AND ACCUMULATED KNOWLEDGE. THESE MAY BE CONVERTED INTO POWER USED TO CREATE DEFINITE PLANS, AND THE GROUP THEN EXPRESSES THESE PLANS IN TERMS OF ACTION. NOW THE MASTERMIND BEGINS TO FEEL THEIR ACCUMULATED EXPRESSION OF ORGANIZED POWER. VOILA! THE BELIEF SYSTEM THAT GIVES BIRTH TO THE MASTERMIND GROUP BECOMES A REALITY!

UNTIL NEXT TIME…

ED HARDING

This has been a journey, setting up the infrastructure so that my blog could transfer directly to my website. Hopefully now I will be able to blog effectively; this is a test blog. I think that every blog should have some content that is valuable, therefore, let’s talk about success.

Everyone of us has hopes and dreams. The goal, ( I have talked about goals, but have not even begun to really deal with them) over our life is to be able to live our hopes and dreams in reality. Those of us who develop a success consciousness do so by obtaining a Burning Desire. Desire is the starting point of all Achievement, but there is a difference between wishing for success and being ready to accomplish it. No matter what may be one’s desire, no one is ready until they believe they can achieve it. A person’s state of mind must be that of a true believer — not simply wishing or hoping. Open-mindedness is essential for belief. Those with closed shut down mentalities will not inspire the faith, courage, and real belief that will be required to become successful no matter what your definition of success is. Imagine success as the Pacific Ocean and you could go to the water’s edge to get it. Would you bring a coffee cup or a tanker truck? A person could begin as a mechanic and wind up owning a chain of shops, or a teacher could wind up owning a private school that would really teach reading, writing, and arithmetic. That’s enough for now; more next time.

Today I was talking to a friend of mine who’s son has a problem with alcohol and drugs, she was concerned about his mental attitude as he begins the journey toward getting sober. Our conversation took me back about forty years. It was then that I was in the same position as her son, maybe worse, the degree of attidude is not really significant. It is the mental attitude that is the problem. You can have an entire universe of negative stinking thinking, or only one tiny little impulse Either will get you loaded and that’s the real proble, as long as one is, let’s say for the purpose of this conversation, an alcoholic. The reason that I stick with alcoholic is because alcohol is what really did me in. Had I continued to drink, I would surely be dead by now. Or I would have killed myself or an innocent person while driving drunk, and gone to prison for vehicular manslaughter. So prison or a permanant dirt nap were the options; both SUCK.

What has to happen for the alcoholic is the realization that the only option is not to drink today, and that,s the truth. Simple, yes? Nothing could be farther from the real truth. That poor dumb-assed alcoholic is in serious mental and physical pain, the kind of pain that will cause them to risk their own or somebody else’s life just to get that drink; nevermind the pain they cause those around them.

What’s the answer? Well, there is none. The poor soul has to hit bottom where the pain of self hatred is so great that they must admit to themselves and some one else that it’s quit or die. Then the JOURNEY may begin, and Recovery is the process that takes place; fortunately for me, I was one of those that were not too smart, too cool, or too hip, and I just sat down a and listened to those people who shared their experience, strength and hope with me for fun and for free. And the miracle began. One day at a time I was given the Grace (an unearned gift from God) to go home that night and look myself in the mirror eye to eye and say to myself, ” today you are a winner, you did the impossible; you did not drink today”. I did the same day after day; every day that I didn’t drink I was a winner; for the first time in my life I was a winner.

As the days went by I began to learn THE LAWS OF THE UNIVERSE. One day and one step at a time I began to be reborn. The wisdom of the universe became my daily bread. Slowly but surely I was transforming from a negative thinker into a positive thinker, and ultimately, from a loser into a winner!  Being a quick study, it only took me 4 years.  By 1976, I had made the 12 steps the basis of my core belief system, and everything began to fall into place.

I asked, ”How can I function in my business without my old friend alcohol to give me the strength to go on?”  I was told that anything I did while drinking I would do better if I was sober.  It was true.  As I began to function sober using universal principles and with God as my partner, everything opened up and everything I touched turned to gold.  I was making more money than I ever dreamed possible, but more importantly, I was evolving spiritually.  This evolution enabled me to transform myself into the hero in my own life.   Even the bad experiences in my past I found I was able to use to help other people.  It was like the greatest source of instant wisdom and inspiration were opened up to me, and I immediately able to solve problems which would baffle others.

I didn’t claim this as my own personal victory, nor did I think I was so great that my ego told me that I was responsible for my transformation and my ability to help others.  I understood — at a gut level — that I was merely a channel for God’s energy (if you don’t believe in God, you can just call it harmonious universal energy.)  This energy flowed through me to other people.

Now, 36 years later, I will repeat, I am the person I always wanted to be.  I am not perfect, but I am progressing through the ups and downs of life.  This miraculous energy enabled me to make the change from a “dead man walking” to a survivor.

Goals and Values are interwoven throughout everybody’s life. Every time I have read about this subject the writing has been so intellectualized and complicated that by the time I reached the third paragraph, my mind begins wandering. I’m going to simply tell a story. I hope you can instantly understand and incorporate my story into your life.

In the beginning as children we learn values from our parents, good and bad, right and wrong. One big problem is that in today’s world, the family structure has been disseminated to the point that many people never learn right from wrong. Consqcuently, these people’s values are distorted or nonexistant.

Along with these values we learn the consequences of violating them: punishment and reward. Everybody wants reward; nobody wants punishment. Therefore, we accept our parents’ values. My parents did the best they could until I was about 5 years old.  Then they turned me over to the Catholic Church where I was brainwashed into believing that God was a supreme being who kept track of my sins and should I die with mortal sin on my soul, the consequences were that I would go to Hell for Eternity; or if I died with an unspecified number of venial sins, I would go to Purgatory for thousands of years. My head told me that I would do about ten million years in Purgatory, or go straight to Hell. Who could live with those values?

In addition, I met my first peer group — the other kids in school. These peer groups changed as I got older, and as long as my values coincided with each peer group, I fit in and was accepted.  Therefore, my self-esteem was not damaged. So it went… In every environment I found myself, there was always some person in authority whose values I had to take on in order to get on. As a result, I constantly had to accept the values of a boss, professor, or some other leader of the pack, in order fit in and maintain my self-esteem. The whole concept didn’t work; I didn’t fit in; psychologically I was a mess. These values that I had accumulated for 18 years weren’t mine.

I was not becoming the person I wanted to be. In 1963 I heard a lyric in an album by Bob Dylan called, “Bringing It All Back Home.” The song was, “It’s All Right, Ma.”  The lyric that impacted me was, “I ain’t got nothing, Ma, to live up to.” That was a relevation!  Who did I want to live up to?  I looked around and saw nobody who qualified. So there I was: no real values, no goals, and no role model. I needed a Mentor.

What did I do?  That’s the question that I will take up in the next chapter. I had no values that were my own.  I didn’t even know what a Goal was, nor how to get one. It’s obvious that I was headed nowhere.  Mediocrity would have been a step up for me, but a life changing transformation had to occurr in order for me to become the person I wanted to be. The next step?  Ed Harding

Goals are a very interesting and necessary part of any person’s plan to become successful. Goals give you a reason to get out of bed and charge into the day. I have set goals since I discovered that I wanted to become successful. If at twenty-seven years old I had made a list of all the things I thought would make me successful and happy, I would have severely short changed myself, not only materially but also spiritually. The evolution that has taken place in my life between twenty-seven and sixty-eight years old expanded my consciousness and therefore broadened my vision, resulting in greater and more enlightened goals allowing me to achieve more than I could possibly have ever conceived at twenty-seven years of age.

This short introductory paragraph doesn’t even begin to broach the infinite subject of setting, accomplishing, resetting and evolving process that takes place in your life once you begin setting both short term and long term goals. A short term goal is one that can be achieved quickly, a simple modification of behavior or vocabulary. A long term goal can take years to accomplish. Many people don’t understand that their first attempt at attaining a goal should be one that is not too difficult. Also, you can have more than one short term goal operating which you are working toward at any given time. Each short term goal that you attain strengthens your beginning core belief system.

As I stated above, this is a complicated subject. I want to “Keep It Simple and Stupid”, ( better known as the KISS formula). But in order to really understand setting goals and incorporating them into your life as a reality so that your dreams come true, you must be aware of how it all starts in life. You may have started at your Mother’s knee and developed values that formed a healthy ego or began with no values or bad values that led to you waking up at twenty-seven years of age a loser with sick values — much like my own life. The result for me was that I had a sick ego which required a complete one hundred and eighty degree transformation in order to apply the Principles of Success in my own life.

In my next message I will talk about the history of creating values that lead to a healthy ego and a strong core belief system which will serve as a platform for stepping out into the world and becoming a successful person.

Sorry, If there is anyone reading this blog yet, yesterday I said I would talk about goals today. I actually wrote a long first chapter on Goals. Unfortunately, my computer malfunctioned and I lost the whole chapter. I will start again tomorrow. By the way, if I miss a day, maybe traveling, I will continue the following day.

Goals are very important. Think to yourself what do I really know about Goals. I will give you until tomorrow, then I will talk in more detail how important Goals are.

The strangest secret is not really strange and it’s not really a secret. It is universal law that has been known and taught since Socrates taught his students in ancient Greece. The simple truth is that you become what you think about 24 hours a day. The process is that the dominant thoughts of your mind reproduce themselves. Therefore, if you allow negative thoughts to control your thinking, the results will demonstrate a negative reality in your daily life. The same is true of positive thoughts; if positive thinking controls your thorught process, you will demonstrate positive results in your daily life.

Each day, our minds are bombarded by thousands of thought impulses. For example: if you watch the news, everything you see and hear will be negative. If you read “Think and Grow Rich” by Napoleon Hill, your mind will be filled with positive thoughts. And consequently you will produce positive behavior as you take action in your daily life.

I ask myself, how do I control my thinking so that I may demonstrate a positive reality today? Thought control is absolutely necessary for any person who has a burning desire to achieve excellence. Tomorrow, I will talk about how I have learned from many wise teachers to control my own thinking, and by doing so, the inside of my head is the place where I want to live most of the time, and the resulting material reality I have achieved in my lifestyle has been worth the effort. I would like to make it clear that no one achieves perfection – progress is the goal. If you continue to progress, your life will improve. Until tomorrow, Ed Harding.

Values. They design what we are. They design the decisions we’ll make,and out of these decisions which come from our values, our life-style is created. Are you developing an excellent Value System (also known as your core belief system) that will lead you to make good decisions? These good choices will quickly demonstrate in the quality of the life-style you will soon create.