Recently, I came across a list of the original rules to the game of “Basket Ball”, as made up (i.e. “created”) by James Naismith on the morning of the very first game:

There are a few things that are particularly interesting to me about these rules:

• They haven’t changed that much in 109 years
• Some of them have changed completely (dribbling, anyone?)
• More than half of them are about enforcing the others
• The “house rules” aren’t listed – that is, gravity, force, momentum, and other laws of physics without which the game itself could not be played.

When it comes to the game of life, one of the most confusing things is figuring out which rules are created (i.e.”made up”) and which are a part of the “house rules” – that is, they will be enforced whether anyone catches you breaking them or not.

As we come to the end of another year, I thought now would be a fun time to explore the difference between these two kinds of rules. Let’s begin today by concentrating on getting a better understanding of a few of the “house rules”; next week (next year!) we’ll pick up with a look at how we create many of our difficulties in life and how we can un-create them going forward.  We’ll also consider how instead of resolutely resolving to play better by the current rules of the game, we might want to make up some new rules instead…

House Rule number one:
What is, is; what isn’t, isn’t

I sometimes call this the “no suffering” rule, because breaking it almost always engenders suffering.  The moment I try to make the case that things shouldn’t be how they are (or should be how they aren’t), I begin to suffer.  As an interesting side note, the sooner I accept that things are the way they are, the easier it is for me to change them.

Here’s a corollary to the “no suffering” rule:

You control what you control; you don’t control what you don’t control

This week, I received an email from someone who’s understanding of this house rule is making a very concrete difference in her life…

While most of us don’t have to deal with quite so much “real life” at any given time, you can probably find areas in your life where you are frustrating yourself by trying to control some aspect of life that isn’t up or down to you.  And if you can let go of wanting to change that, at least for now, you will find that frustration recedes into the background freeing you up to make the best of the task at hand.

House rule number two:
The world is what you think it is.

Here’s how I wrote about this “house rule” in Supercoach:

I am convinced that a deeper understanding of thought not only leads to greater inner peace and tranquility, which I can vouch for from experience, but will ultimately lead to a more peaceful world, which is an experimental hypothesis I am actively engaged in testing on a weekly basis.  But because things are the way they are and I only control what I control, let me finish this tip (and this year) on a simpler note:

With love,

PS – Want to Create the Impossible in 2011?

The first Creating the Impossible program of the new year will launch in February, 2011, and as always will be included as a part of your current Solutions Cafe membership. (You can also sign up separately here.)

Getting to participate in our most popular online program is just one of the perks that members currently get in the Solutions Cafe, including unlimited 24/7 access to over 700 tips and hundreds of hours of audio, participation in the year long Success Made Fun program, and a variety of new content being added regularly.

In 2011, for the first time your membership in the cafe will also include direct access to me – a monthly call exclusive for members where you can ask questions and get personal coaching on what matters most in your life!

If you’re already a member of the Solutions Cafe, you don’t need to do anything – your membership will automatically transfer when the new site launches – but if you’re not yet a member and want to lock-in the 2010 price now, click on the button below to join and get started today!

There’s a famous scene in the movie When Harry Met Sally where Meg Ryan’s character orders lunch, much to the bemusement of her best friend, played by Billy Crystal:

While there is certainly a time and a place to simply “get what you get” and move on, at some point I noticed that for me, taking what’s on offer (or more often, walking away) had become an almost pathological pattern.  If what was presented on the “menu of life” wasn’t exactly what I wanted, I’d say “no” without it ever occurring to me that I might be able to get it with the strawberry ice cream on the side.

Yet I also recognized that more often than not, with a slight variation, what’s on offer would become what I wanted.  And surprisingly often, when I’m willing to “order off the menu”, the universe is quite happy to serve it up exactly the way that works best for me.

For example, earlier this year, I ran the first ever Supercoach Academy in New York City.  In my mind, it was going to be a one-off event – get some of the best coaches in the world together to teach an international audience how to make their living by transforming lives. I had a list of reasons not to do it again, the main one being that I want to spend more time at home with my family and traveling to NYC for four or five days each month didn’t really help with that.  The only problem was that for all my reasons to say “no”, I absolutely loved doing it – putting it together, teaching on it, learning from the other “supercoaches”, and watching the magic happen in the room.

Those of you who are familiar with me and my work will no doubt be aware that my decision making criteria in life by and large consists of asking myself “do I want to?”  If the answer is yes, I do; if the answer is no, I tend not to.  The problem, of course, comes when the answer is not a clean “yes” or “no”, but more of a “maybe/kind of/sort of”.

While my default way of handling “maybe” is to redefine it as a “no for now” (see the short video God and the Chocolate Ice Cream for more on this), I’m learning to add in a follow up question that encourages me to at least consider some possibilities that might not appear to be “on the menu”:

What would have to be different for this to be a no-brainer yes?

So when I asked myself if I wanted to do run another Academy in 2011 and the answer was “maybe”, instead of walking away and leaving it I instead explored what would have to be different for me to answer with an unabashed and unapologetic “yes”.  And I realized that, obvious though it may seem to me now, the only thing that would really need to change was for us to do it in Los Angeles.  And so it is.  And despite my having been absolutely convinced that no one would fly all the way to LA six times in six months, we’re already 80% full with more paid attendees than in 2010, flying in from as far away as Australia, Norway, Saudi Arabia, and Israel.

Here’s another version of the “off the menu” question I sometimes ask myself and clients:

What would be even better than that?

Ironically, just as I was writing that question, the phone rang and our piano teacher called to confirm that he would be coming to work with us later this afternoon at our usual lesson time.  Which happens to be at the same time as the football game.  So when I asked myself what would be even better than an afternoon of piano lessons and a football game, the answer was “to not have them at the same time”.  So I asked.  And he moved the lesson.  And I’m really looking forward to this afternoon in a whole new way!

Now there is one huge caveat around this whole game of possibility – if you fall into the trap of believing that your happiness or well-being is dependent on actually getting what you want, or worse still that in some way you are entitled to have things work out your way, you are setting yourself and everyone around you up for a miserable life.  As often as not, the amount of effort it would take to shift things will be more than it’s worth, and sometimes people just say “no”.

But if you’re willing to play the game of life as a game, you might just find that you can create things even better than you’ve imagined with far less effort than you thought it would take.  And in my experience so far, living from that possibility makes life even better…

Have fun, learn heaps, and may all your success be fun!

With love,

PS – Our new website is on it’s way…

In January, we’ll be re-launching our website with a new web address, a newly re-designed site, and a new and improved membership cafe!

As well as all the goodies hundreds of members currently get in the Solutions Cafe, including unlimited 24/7 access to over 700 tips and hundreds of hours of audio, participation in our Creating the Impossible programs and a variety of new content being added regularly, the new cafe will include more access to me – a monthly call exclusive for members where you can ask questions and get personal coaching on what matters most in your life!

If you’re already a member of the Solutions Cafe, you don’t need to do anything – your membership will automatically transfer when the new site launches – but if you’re not yet a member and want to lock-in the 2010 price now, click on the button below to join and get started today!

When I teach transformative coaching, it is not so much a set of skills that needs to be taught as a new way of seeing and a deeper understanding of what it is that is being seen.

One of the distinctions I have found to be extremely useful in this process is the difference between “normal” and “natural”. It can be difficult and time-consuming to get someone (including yourself) to conform to a societal ideal of the norm. But it takes no particular act of will to restore something to its natural state.

Here are some of the ways that distinction typically shows up in our culture:

This is not to suggest that “normal” is always bad – simply that when you align with what is natural and real, things seem much simpler and life gets a lot easier to navigate. Instead of continually trying to fix things, you step back and see what’s actually there – and in that clear seeing, the world as you knew it seems to change in front of your eyes.

In fact, while one of the most common things people say about those who are being coached in this way is “it’s like they’re a different person”, it would be far more accurate to say “they’re seeing with different eyes”.

Here’s a fun way of describing the process of transformation which came out of a conversation with one of my first coaching apprentices, the brilliantly talented Ali Campbell…

Imagine you have a reputation as one of the greatest restorers of statues in all the world. Your studio has a world-wide reputation, and there is a waiting list of people who want to get their statues restored to their full glory.

One day, a student comes to you to learn more about how it is you do what you do. She tells you that she too wants to be a great statue restorer, and is willing to study for as long as it takes to become one of the best.  You can tell she is truly committed to learning, so you decide to hold nothing back.

“Look around the studio,” you tell her, “and choose a statue for me to work on.” They notice as if for the first time that the studio is filled with statues for as far as the eye can see, and each statue is covered from head to toe with a drop cloth, making them virtually impossible to tell apart.

“How about that one?” she says, pointing to a slightly taller statue toward the back.

“Excellent choice,” you respond with a smile. You walk over to the statue and take a bit of time to walk around the statue, exploring it from different angles. Then with a mock drum roll, you whip off the drop cloth to unveil a beautiful golden god, shimmering with power and light.

Duly impressed, the student asks to see another, this time pointing to a small statue almost hidden amongst a group of larger ones. Again you walk over, this time taking a bit longer to gently gather up enough of the cloth to pull it off in one fell swoop, revealing the almost porcelain smooth face and body of a perfectly formed cherub underneath.

At the student’s request, you repeat the process again and again. Occasionally the drop cloth gets caught up on an extremity or oddly shaped part, but with a bit of time and care, dozens of beautiful men, women, and children are revealed to the light.

Eventually, the student looks at you curiously and asks how it is that each statue she has chosen is already perfectly restored before you even removed the cloth from around them, and that is when you decide she is ready to hear your secret:

“I do not need to restore these statues,” you say, “because they already have  perfection inside them. I simply need to remove the veils that cover that perfection over. My art is simply that I can see the veils to remove them.”

“But how is it that they are all so beautiful?” the student asks.

“You would have to ask that of their original creator,” you respond. “But I can tell you this – there is something about the quality of light in this studio that seems to bring that beauty to life.”

You do not need to work with a great “restorer” to find the innate health and wisdom and well-being that is inside you.  But it certainly makes things easier if you know in which direction to look.  Study the “normal” and you will become an expert on how people think the world should look; study what is natural and you might just see the kindness of the design…

Have fun, learn heaps, and may all your success be fun!

With love,

“The significant problems we face cannot be solved at the same level of thinking we were at when we created them.” – Albert Einstein

Imagine for a moment that there is a glass elevator through which you can view the world. Understandably, things would look differently to you depending on how high up you are in the elevator at any given time.

What might look like total chaos when viewed from the ground floor would begin to reveal pattern and order when viewed from even a few levels higher; go high enough up the elevator and what seemed so huge and important to you at the bottom would now seem as tiny and impersonal as a bunch of ants running around on a giant ant hill.

While there are many such “elevators” in our lives, perhaps the one that impacts our experience most profoundly is what I call the “elevator of understanding”.  The simple rule of thumb for this elevator is this:

Ground Floor – “Lions and tigers and bears, oh my”

At the bottom of the elevator would be someone who cannot see any difference between thoughts and reality.  People stuck at this level often end up on the streets or in mental institutions, as it is understandably impossible to function in society when there are monsters and voices everywhere telling you what to do and where to go.

Second Floor – “Don’t look at me in that tone of voice”

A bit further up the elevator might be someone who has never recognized the difference between having a thought and having to act on that thought.  People stuck at this level sometimes find themselves in prisons, as they have not yet recognized the difference between having a “criminal thought” and committing a “criminal act”.  (To this day, some of the most powerful breakthroughs I’ve seen have come when people who have been in and out of prison or gangs begin to recognize the role of thought in their lives – check out this amazing video to learn more.)

Now, chances are that if you are reading this tip, you have a greater degree of understanding of the role of thought in creating your experience than either of the two preceding examples.  So it might seem surprising to you that someone could actually believe there are aliens controlling their mind, or that if someone behaves in a way you don’t like that “means” you have to hit them or beat them or kill them.

But as we move up the elevator, you may find yourself beginning to say “but wait a minute – that’s not my thinking – that’s real!”  I ask only for you to stay open to the possibility that even the most solid and intractable seeming problem in your life might, when viewed from higher up the elevator of understanding, appear as curious to you as the thought of a child drawing a picture of a monster and then running out of the room screaming in terror.

Third Floor – “People who think like me are good; people who don’t think like me are bad”

If you spend any time listening to talk radio, chances are you’ve come across people who genuinely believe that anyone with different social, political, or religious beliefs to them is at best an idiot and at worst deliberately spreading evil in the world.  But this personal enmity makes very little sense when viewed from the next level…

Fourth Floor – “People who think like me are right; people who don’t think like me are wrong”

Leonard Orr once said “Whatever the thinker thinks, the prover proves.”  So to try and make a rational case for our point of view by gathering “evidence” for the reality of our thinking won’t help us, because our own perceptual filters only allow us to see what it is that we’re already looking for.  And any debate or argument on a topic inevitably reinforces the pre-existing biases you came in with, so you are more sure than ever that what you thought when you began the argument is even more true than it was beforehand.

(Perhaps the most invisible version of this thought is “Everyone sees the world in their own unique way”, because it is so often followed up with a silent “…and anyone who can’t see that is an idiot or just plain wrong!” :-)

Fifth Floor – “The world is what you think it is”

The Hawaiian shaman and supercoach Serge Kahili King describes the principle of thought in this beautifully simple phrase.  Instead of trying to explain why we think what we think about the world by looking for evidence in the world or in our upbringing, we recognize that the nature of thought is creative.

The reason that what we think seems so real to us is not some flaw in us or even in the world – it’s because that’s just how thought works.

• We do not experience money; we experience our thinking about money
• We do not experience our children or parents or spouses; we experience our thinking about our children, parents, and spouses
• We do not experience the world; we experience our thinking about the world

This level of understanding opens up the possibility of making dramatic changes in your world and transforming your relationships with others.  And the more clearly you understand the principle of thought, the more you are able to assist others and the less frightening a place the world around you becomes.

Sixth Floor – “It’s all thought”

While mystics throughout the ages all seem to agree that the formless world of spirit is  reality and the world of form is just illusion, any Zen master worth their salt will hit you in the head with a stick or drop a large rock on your foot the second you start claiming that you “really do know that it’s all just thought”.  But if you’re lucky enough to get to visit the sixth floor, even for a moment, chances are you’ll experience the bliss of nirvana and “the peace which passeth all understanding”.  In those moments, lives change.

This is the level of the miraculous -of transformations that defy rational explanation and insights that re-define the world in which we live.  And while I certainly don’t live on the sixth floor, even knowing it exists is often enough to give me hope when I bump up against something that seems so solid and hurts so much that I hear myself say “sure, I get that all that other stuff was just thought, but this is not my thinking – this is real!”

Have fun, learn heaps, and enjoy the ride…

With love,

PS – The all new Genius Catalyst Cafe is coming!

Want to make 2011 your best year yet? We’ll be re-launching our website with a new web address, a newly re-designed site, and a new and improved membership cafe!

As well as all the goodies you currently get in the Solutions Cafe, including unlimited 24/7 access to over 700 tips and hundreds of hours of audio, participation in our Creating the Impossible programs and a variety of new content being added regularly, the new cafe will include more access to me – a monthly call exclusive for members where you can ask questions and get personal coaching on what matters most in your life!

If you’re already a member of the Solutions Cafe, you don’t need to do anything – your membership will automatically transfer when the new site launches – but if you’re not yet a member and want to lock-in the 2010 price now, click on the button below to join and get started today!