Going From "Active" to "Passive" - How to Stop 'Making' Money and Start 'Earning' it Instead!

Who is this guy? Well T. Harv Eker went from zero to millionaire in only two and a half years. Eker is president of Peak Potentials Training, one of the fastest growing success training companies in North America. With his unique brand of "street smarts with heart," Eker's humorous, "cut-to-the-chase" style keeps his audience spellbound. People come from all over the world to attend his sold-out seminars, where crowds often exceed 2,000 people for a weekend program. T. Harv Eker is the author of the book Secrets of the Millionaire Mind, Mastering the Inner Game of Wealth.

I was randomly strolling in Chapters one afternoon just browsing some books (of course, lol) and fell upon T. Harv Eker's book by curiosity, mostly. I grabbed a chair and started browsing and was immediately captivated. I knew after what felt like 5 minutes (but was actually 20 mins) I was buying this book! Time just flew-by due to the in-depth connection I felt while reading this book - he was right on the "nose" with how my inner-money blueprint was stopping me from earning more money.

On Tuesday February 8th, 2011 T. Harv Eker held another "Ask Harv" online session.
To view the first "Ask Harv" session - see Knowledge, Power and Energy - What the heck are you talking about?

Watch live streaming video from peakpotentials at livestream.com

In this session of "Ask Harv", Eker elaborates more on describing the difference between "Active" and "Passive" incomes. "To create a passive income there are two ways you can do this. One - you can buy an income structure that someone else built and already works. Two you can create or build your own structure."

Harv continues his teachings by providing some examples of Passive Income in which he goes on to explain that "people" are the ones to make this complicated. "Keep it simple!! Simple is usable, Complicated is interesting."

His strategy is continuously based on "changing things at the root" which in turn changes your inner-money blueprint. Your programming (childhood upbringing) established your thoughts, your thoughts established how you feel, and your feelings lead your actions and your actions lead to your result. And the cycle continues. 

So what you have (your results - ex: debt, material things, knowledge, whatever, etc..) are a result of your actions (...whether you'd like to admit it to yourself or not). And most of these actions were based on feelings (how you felt at the time) which were result of thoughts (what you believe, what you value, what you know, etc.) which comes from your inner-programming (what you were thought and/or what you kept as beliefs).

Just remember beliefs are 'changeable'. What you believed as a child, as a teenager, as an adult isn't always the same - to some degree (and at times completely) your beliefs changed, they are no longer the same beliefs.

Example: My parents smoked. I started smoking not thinking any differently - actually I thought it was cool. But as I got older and more knowledgeable, my beliefs changed and have now been smoke-free for over 10 years.

Your beliefs are what tell your brain things and so your brain then believes them - cause you are telling you something, and why would you lie to yourself?

In the book Secrets of the Millionaire Mind, Mastering the Inner Game of Wealth, T. Harv Eker goes on to describe: "I worked my butt off but kept coming short. I had "Loch Ness monster disease": I had heard of this thing called profit, I just never saw any of it. I kept thinking, "If I just get into the right business, get on the right horse, I'll make it." But I was wrong. Nothing was working... at least for me. And it was the last part of that sentence that finally struck me. How come others were succeeding in the exact same business I was in and I was still broke? What happened to "Mr. Potential"?


So I began doing some serious soul-searching. I examined my true beliefs and saw that even though I said I really wanted to be rich, I had some deep-rooted worries about it. Mostly I was afraid. Afraid that I might fail, or worse, succeed and then somehow lost it all. Then I'd really be a schmuck. Worse, I would blow the one thing I had going for me: my "story" that I had all this "potential." What if I found out I didn't have what it took and I was destined to a life of struggle?"

...you'll have to read the book to find out the rest! ;-)
Like I said earlier, his writing techniques were captivating and so real -This book is powerful, persuasive and practical on all levels. Got me thinking... so anyways back to the "Ask Harv" interview...

In the end what's important is you. Making money is work - because making money means you are working for the money. Odds are you, this means you are working at making someone else's vision a reality. Earning money is the other end of the spectrum. Earning money means that money is working for you. Yes of course, you'll need to at first work to get things started, but when the wheels are in motion, the wheels keep turning without you. (Of course like anything else, maintenance maybe required at time - ex. oiling the wheels; changing a tire; etc...) But all-in-all, when you've established a system that works for you - you have now entered the "Passive Income" model-family. 

What do you need to do? First off, "Get in the game!!", Harv explains "Stop thinking about every single move!". A single step is better than thinking about every single step to be taken and not taking them cause you're too busy planning them... "Take steps and adjust as you go!"

When establishing a "passive" income system there are 3 focus points:

#1: Product

Whatever it is that you are providing, always aim at making it better. 

#2 Customers

Go from having "lookers" to "buyers" - this is your Marketing strategy.

#3 System

Make it so that your product runs without you.

With these 3 focus points in mind, you then have to take action:

#1 Have an intension to create multiple passive income streams. (Remember to complete one successfully first, before embarking on establishing any further streams!)

#2 Get Knowledge. (Learn about what you are doing and continuously keep learning... don't stop!!)

#3 Take Action. (Take what you learnt and put it into action!!)

** Now keep repeating steps 2 & 3 to keep making your system better!! **

Some "Passive" incomes presented by Harv as being quick-fixes are (again - always falls between two categories: Purchase an existing system that works OR Creating your own):

Purchasing Passive Income (examples):

- Vending machines

- ATM machines

- Storage Units

- Real-estate

- investments

Building your own Passive Income (examples):

- Invent a Product (and then patent / trademark with a lawyer and then give/sell it to someone already in the business)

- License your ideas!

- Robotic Internet Marketing Systems

- Professional Web Affiliates

- Joint Venture Brokers

- Royalties (ex. write a book, write a song, write a movie, create a game, create some art, etc...)

Just remember that you = value. 

Your value is that which solves a problem for people.  

Remember, not everyone can do everything - they just don't have time (otherwise you'd be doing it all too, right?!).

So everyone needs a hairdresser - that's the value (talent) you have.

You understand the hairdressing business, the needs of the customers.

So how do you make this a "passive" income. 

Well, why not open up your own shop (instead of working for someone else)?

Then you hire hairdressers to work for you, you have business people running the business.

...and so now that your work is done, you lay on the beach making all the necessary decisions - do I want a piña colada or a cerveza? ;-)

5 Keys to Accomplishing Your Dreams

Reco McDaniel is a Successful Entrepreneur, Coach, & Speaker. Below is a series of videos made available describing Reco McDaniel's view points on what it takes to go from "Dreams" to "Reality". This series is entitled: 5 Keys to Accomplishing Your Dreams.

Visit Reco McDaniel's website: http://www.recomcdaniel.com/




I first was exposed to this video early in 2011 and was pleasantly impressed at how simplified McDaniel brings about his point of views. "Keeping things simple" is a knack that not everyone is able to accomplish since society embeds in our brains that to be smart you have to be able to talk "complicated"; you have to be "complicated"; you have to be everything else but you.

#1 Have a Great Attitude
"Having a Great Attitude is like having a Navigation System"

"The wise man in the storm prays to God, not for safety from danger, but for the deliverance from fear. It is the storm within that endangers him, not the storm without."

When you decide to make changes to yourself, to your life, your biggest obstacle (biggest challenge) is going to be you. With all of things going on around you, will all the things people are saying, what they're thinking, what you're thinking, what you are telling yourself... in the end - it's all about you making that decision and moving forward with it.

"Navigation System" - why did you buy it? Cause you wanted to go somewhere and didn't know how to get there, right? But the Navigation System is telling you to take roads you're not familiar with, all your friends tell you that there's something wrong with this machine cause they've never hear of anyone every having to take this road either... Fear kicks-in and what do you do, you don't listen to your "Navigation System" and continue to make/take detours, voluntarily. Why then did you bother with this system?

Fear is what guides us so strongly that it controls our lives to the point where we believe it's security. "I'm so afraid to go down that road (cause every single voice in my head is screaming DON'T DO IT!!) that I know feel and believe that maybe it's the right decision for me NOT to do it." The unknown is always scary and it'll always be scary until it becomes "known". Choosing not to "take that road" leaves it as an unknown - thus keeping you living in fear and programming in your brain that it's dangerous, that's it's bad, and that you should always remember (keep memory file) that "that road" is to never be taken. ...And why not? Because you were too scared of this unknown and because you weren't able to step beyond this fear, you've forever now programmed in your head that it's 'bad'.

Now that this is programmed in your head - your brain will attract to it all the necessary details to make this "true" cause your brain needs reasons - you told it what (not to go there) so now it's going to look for the why. ...and so how will it do this... it'll bring to you reasons not to go down that road. All of a sudden you'll start hearing 'bad' stories about that road, you'll hear all the negative things that have happened to people who've taken that road, etc... Why are you only hearing these 'negative' things - because that's what you NEED to hear cause you don't want to take it, you NEED to hear those things to justify yourself as to why YOU didn't go there. "Oh ya, did you hear last week about that snow storm? Thank goodness I didn't go down that road who knows what would have happened... I don't know where I would have ended-up!"

"You weren't born with a spirit of FEAR, you were born with a spirit of FAITH", McDaniel continues to explain. "What matters is that you stay on track and you get to the finish line."

Stopping yourself from getting there is all a matter of "you". No one, absolutely no one, can stop you from doing anything or going anywhere unless you allow them to. Excuses, fears, procrastination, blah blah blah... all of these are simply "mind over matter" habits, emotions, etc. that you must choose to control, self-control.

So equip yourself with the proper navigation system that you need (obviously you're not going to buy road maps for Australia if you are going to be navigating in Canada), activate it and then use it. Just remember however that this unit is just that a unit. It's a "source" that will tell you where you're destination is and it'll tell you how to get there - but it doesn't get you there "magically". You have to still get into your car. You still have to drive yourself there. You still have to stop and put in some gas...

What McDaniel is saying here is: "...you can have a great attitude but if you don't do anything about this great attitude; if you don't do anything about putting gas in to the car, pressing the gas, and getting to where you need to go; it's not going to work for you."



#2 Don't Fight with your eyes closed
Reco McDaniel notes, "One thing people do in life, and the reason why they're not successful, is because they don't recognize things that they should recognize."

- You can only correct what you are willing to confront
- Anything worth having , is worth fighting for
- Most people fight with their eyes closed (in life)
- People want better lives but really don't know how to get it
- Reps in the business not getting trained, going to meetings, quitting but wish for success overnight

#3 Understand that Success is Intentional
- You may have seemed to stumbled onto this business, maybe by accident, but developing your business into a massive success will be on purpose.

#4 Choose State over Fate
- When things happen in life - and they will happen...
   "Do I except this as my fate or as a temporary state?"
- If it is my fate I am finished and I should give up.
   But instead I answered that I am in a state that I could
   fashion, change, & transform I did not succumb, but
   rather persevered and moved forward.




#5 Stop listening to unqualified people
"I am who I listen to", McDaniel continues to explains, "and you are who you hang around."

- Sometimes we end up going somewhere because of someone in the backseat of the car.

What he explains here is that, we continuously allow ourselves to "listen" to other people. Listen to people who aren't going anywhere, people who don't have the same visions, the same goals, ...heck they're not even going where we want to go - but we're still listening. We're the ones driving the car and listening to what this backseat driver is telling us and we're going where they're telling us to go!

- Success is not achieving what someone else wants you to achieve, success is about discovering  your purpose and achieving it within your lifespan.

- The idea of life is to get the things you see on the inside to happen on the outside.

To summarize, in the end - when all things are said and done. Did you do what you wanted to do? Are you who you "see" yourself as being? When you look inside yourself, deep inside, are you "being" you?

When you reach that "end of the road" did you leave behind what you wanted - or were you too busy following someone else who was? ...or going somewhere you didn't even want to go, cause that's just what everyone else was doing...

Think about it...

Social Networking: Points to Ponder

Given my career background in IT, I still get excited with some of the new technology-creations people come up with and especially get intrigued when things kind-of mesh together so naturally. This means that somewhere behind the code, some really amazing brains created this ~ and this where Social Networking falls-in. Social Networking for me - is a well laid-out map linking (meshing) everyone together in its own mysterious way (for us developers we probably have more of an understanding of what's needed to make this happen - but in the end; you either enjoy it or you don't).

Social Networking is still very primitive, from my point of view, I can see Social Networking moving technology in a whole new direction and potentially changing how people interact with the www (Internet) fairly similar to how Google changed how people searched online.

Whether you are new or old to social networking tool it's important to continue to stay aware of your online presence - being accessible 24/7 to the world. [Unless you've make necessary security adjustments to prevent this - and still this point could be an argued.]

Either way, here are some basic guidelines to review for those of us who have online presence:

#1 Is this Business or Personal?

When you decide to embark within the social networking bandwagon you'll first need to have a email address. Be careful here which email address you use to register - your registration email choice can have an impact on your business-ethics, or could pretty much potentially cost you your job!

If you are using a social networking site (of your choice) for personal usage, however if you choose to use a work-related email address, just ensure that you are aware of your organization's policies and/or verdict on Social Networking usage at work guidelines (if any). Pleading the "naive" card doesn't always ring well with companies - know what your boundaries are and use them wisely.

If your aim is to use social networking sites for personal use - then by all means, use your own personal email address and if you don't have one, get one! There are countless sites out there that you can register yourself with that will provide you with FREE email access.

Other points to ponder related to #1 is to do some house-cleaning. Once your account is created and that you now have an online presence, not just right now but continuously proceed with doing some house-cleaning of this account. Dust doesn't accumulate as quickly online as it does in my living room but it can get messier faster since I "kind-of" really don't see it?! What am I talking about?...

If you don't want to start receiving (or increase your already existing) SPAM email counts, you'll have to decide what it is you wish to share with the public (a.k.a. the entire world).

First decide if you wish to make your email address visible on this new social networking site, and if you do - should it be visible to everyone or only to selected few?

Second - go through your social networking site's settings / options and review all of it's settings and options. I'm 100% sure you'll find some very interesting things here; similar to when you decide to move your sofa to do some "real" cleaning... you always find 'stuff' here don't-cha?!

Ok so what to look for... check for setting that will send you email notifications. Do you really want to receive an email every time someone interacts with your social networking site? If no, then by all means - disable these unnecessary notifications! Especially if you've registered using your work-related email account! Hello! IT will be knocking on your door (or cubicle) anytime - your dozen if not hundreds of notifications (which are basically spam messages) are taking up room in the email system and is using up what we IT people call useless bandwidth. ...You're going to be checking your social networking site anyways so why have redundant messages telling you the same thing you'll be seeing when you log-in to the site?!

There are countless other sections I could drill into but once you open-up this beast take time to tame it and you'll be pleasantly surprised at just how manageable social networking sites can be - but don't just open this section up once! Return to your options; settings; security; privacy... whatever it's call - fairly frequently. I make it a challenge to check my settings on my sites at least every 3 months (quarterly).

#2 Friends / Associates

Choose wisely! Friends are the links between you and people. This is what Social Networking sites are based on. The more the merrier (for them!).

What should you do and/or not do?

Well first the obvious - don't go "hitting" on your friends' friends. This is a "no-no". If you wouldn't flirt with random people when walking through the mall, then why would things be any different when you are hiding behind your social network profile? This goes the same for "poking" - please "poke" carefully. Sometimes what you think is done in good fun or what you think is a simple "Poke - Hey, how's it going?", could turn High-School drama on you in a split second!

Another area is counts - some people think it's important that they have a high number of Friends in their list. They know everyone! ...sure you do!? That's why you're at home Saturday night "creeping" people's profiles... [sarcasm gets the better part of me at times, I don't stop it cause I like it! ...what's that old saying, "If you can't take the heat then get out of the kitchen!"]

Just because you and Jo-Blow like the same song on YouTube doesn't mean you should request him to become your friend. If you think you've got more then 'a song' in common and would like to 'get-to-know-each-other' then send him a private message. This way, if he chooses to ignore you (which is fine - really cause liking the song "Don't-cha wish your girlfriend was hot like me" doesn't mean he's looking?!). Sending someone a private message puts the "ball" in their court and presents them with the choice of either "playing" or "turning down" the opportunity. In your private message you can then also state what your intentions are (ex. common interests; live in the same community; participate some similar sports; go to the same University maybe we could meet up for lunch and discuss Philosophy?...).

#3 Think Before you Post!

Back in my day, people didn't just shout out (yes out-loud) randomly "statuses" during class, or at work, or while walking down the street!? Today, social media sites and social networking sites make "shouting" so easy that it's almost an obsession. "I need to tell people what I'm doing/thinking right now cause my pose online is just dying to know!"... ya I sit here waiting for you to update your status... sure if I were stalking you!

Yes it's nice to get updates and get interaction with people -cause that's what "social networking" is all about, however choose your messages wisely, and especially how you wish to share them.

Example - Mary-Lou wants to throw her husband a surprise party. She broadcasts the event on Facebook to let everyone know when and where. Mary-Lou didn't check her Facebook account notifications and so all of her notifications are still "active". Her husband checks their email account, and voila get to read everyone's comment about his upcoming party.--> Bad judgment on Mary-Lou's part. <--

Another example - Betty-Jo thinks Susan & her husband are having issues. Instead of posting her concerns on Susan's Facebook wall (which might be public to everyone to read) she sends her a Private message. Susan replies back and let's Betty-Jo know that, "no everything is fine - John's work is just going through some restructuring so he's a little depressed at the moment, but we're seeing a therapist to help us cope with this. Thanks for your concern." --> Good judgment call on Betty-Jo's part. <--

Other common-sense "faux-pas":

• Spamming people
• Flame wars (don't argue publicly online)
• Keep it PG13
• Busy-bodies exist everywhere, even online (some people just live for drama!)

#4 Privacy

Don't forget to check your privacy settings regularly. As stated in rule #1 - Return to your options; settings; security; privacy... whatever it's call - fairly frequently.

Be aware of what it is you are forward-facing out publicly. Is it too much? Is it inappropriate? If you are friends (online) with all of your work colleagues, and at the same time are bashing your work or your boss... how long do you expect this to go on prior to them finding out?

#5 What's your Purpose / Mission?

Are you promoting something? Are you selling something? Is your site topic specific? If you answered yes to any of these questions, then maybe creating a social networking site specific for your business or product would be more appropriate. You could have two sites, one for personal usage and one more topic/business related. You could even create "Fan Pages" so that some of your friends can acknowledge your product or topic and provide feedback without seeming like your friendship is intertwined with you topic/business.

Bottom line, social networking sites can be fun and are full of "did you know..." gossip-like details. Social networking site's newsfeeds will pretty much (one-day) replace our local papers and who knows maybe even tv and radio live-media sources. Everything will just be online since news is shared faster (in live-time) this way and can be changed/updated in real-time. No make-up prep; hairdressers; cameramen; lighting; and all that jazz... heck maybe even our taxes will go down, yeh right?! ...Was worth the mention, right?!

Just remember - whatever you choose to do online, choose wisely. It's easy to forget the picture you posted of your friend in high school puking in the backyard [cause that was funny??] - only to find it 8 years later, re-posted online by someone else just when he/she [you're-now-no-longer-friend] is completing his/her Political Science degree. Think about it...

What you think is funny, is it REALLY? Would you go out of your way, print this out and send it as a postcard to your friend in Australia, and would they actually laugh about it, really?!

Be smart. Think twice. And remember, do onto others what you would want done to you. If you wouldn't want someone to share something about you, then by all means - don't share it about them. If you wish someone would have "minded-their own business", then mind your own too (or if you are really concerned, contact them directly - privately.)

Social Networking - use at your own discretion. ...I think if you read some of the fine print, in the terms of agreement - somewhere - it states that you have to have some common sense to use their product..., I'm pretty sure I read that somewhere... ;-)

Faith - by David Whyte

I want to write about faith,
about the way the moon rises
over cold snow, night after night,

faithful even as it fades from fullness,
slowly becoming that last curving and impossible
sliver of light before the final darkness.

But I have no faith myself
I refuse it even the smallest entry.

Let this then, my small poem,
like a new moon, slender and barely open,
be the first prayer that opens me to faith.

-- David Whyte

Meaning - by John W. Gardner

Meaning is not something you stumble across,
like the answer to a riddle or the prize in a treasure hunt.
Meaning is something you build into your life.
You build it out of your own past, out of your affections and loyalties,
out of the experience of humankind as it is passed on to you,
out of your own talent and understanding,
out of the things you believe in,
out of the things and people you love,
out of the values for which you are willing to sacrifice something.
The ingredients are there.
You are the only one who can put them together into that unique pattern that will be your life.
Let it be a life that has dignity and meaning for you.
If it does, then the particular balance of success or failure is of less account.

John W. Gardner

Who You Gonna BE?

Barbara McAfee (from the CD While You're Alive)

Who you gonna BE while you do what you do
How you gonna show up while you’re passing though
I’m living in this question… You can too
Who you gonna BE while you do what you do

You can do all of the right things and still be a jerk
And a really bad temper can wreck a lot of fine work
There’s no sense of direction when you’re going berserk

Who you gonna BE while you do what you do
How you gonna show up while you’re passing though
I’m living in this question… You can too
Who you gonna BE while you do what you do

You can sit up in a corner and criticize
And try to cut people down to manageable size
When an idea hits the table
You can roll your eyes

Who you gonna BE while you do what you do
How you gonna show up while you’re passing though
I’m living in this question… You can too
Who you gonna BE while you do what you do

Now you can argue all night ‘bout the ends and the means
But if you don’t like who you are don’t mean a hill of beans
And at the end of the day, when your conscience convenes
Could be an ugly scene

You may not remember what you do or say
But people will remember how they felt along the way
You can leave a trail of blessing starting today

People could be glad to see you comin’ through that door
And when you’re running out of patience
You might find a little more
And you could be the hero you’ve been waiting for

So who you gonna BE while you do what you do
How you gonna show up while you’re passing through
I’m living in this question… You can too
Who you gonna BE while you do what ya
Who you gonna BE while you do what ya
Who you gonna BE while you do what you do!!!!!!!

Fear of Success: Are you blocking yourself from success?

In the Blog post below Steve Pavlina provides his input/views on how fear can prevent you from becoming successful.

Fear of Success: What will happen if you succeed?

December 4th, 2004 by Steve Pavlina

Sometimes you find yourself with a goal you think you should want to achieve, but you just don’t seem to be taking enough action to reach it. You aren’t really afraid of failure or rejection, the path to the goal seems clear enough and might even be an interesting challenge, and occasionally you’ll make some progress. But most of the time you can’t seem to get into that flow state, and you’re not sure why. This often happens with long-term goals that require intermittent action, like losing weight or transitioning to start a new business and eventually quit your job.

One question I’ve found helpful to ask in these situations is this: What will happen if you succeed? Forget about what you hope will happen or what you fear might happen, but realistically consider what probably will happen. So you achieve your goal. Then what? What else will change?

I’m not talking about giving a 5-second cursory answer, like “If I lose the weight, then I’ll be thin.” Set aside at least 15-30 minutes just to think about how your life will really change once you achieve your goal (with no TV, radio, or other distractions). There are often unexpected side effects that you may not be aware of consciously, but subconsciously they can be enough to prevent you from taking committed action. For example, if you lose a lot of weight, here are some possible side effects: people will notice and will comment about it, other people will ask you for diet advice, you may feel you need to continue with a permanent lifestyle change to maintain your new weight, you may need to buy new clothes, you may become more attractive to others and thereby attract more social encounters (wanted or unwanted), overweight friends might become jealous, your family may resist your changes, you may feel stressed about whether you can keep the weight off, you may worry about the loss of certain favorite foods from your diet, and so on.

It’s rare that a goal is all roses. Success requires change, and change has both positive and negative consequences. Often while people claim to want to succeed at something, the reality is that the negatives outweigh the positives for them. But one way to overcome this problem is to consciously think about what those negatives are, and then uproot them one by one. Uprooting a negative side effect could mean figuring out how to eliminate it completely, or it could mean just accepting it and learning to live with it.

It’s certainly helpful to focus on the positive side of a goal. But don’t forget to take an occasional survey of the dark side and accept that you’re going to have to deal with that too.

Unlike fear of failure and fear of rejection, fear of success can be far more insidious because it’s almost always unconscious. But it’s not fear of success itself that is the problem but rather fear of the side effects of success, many of which may be genuinely unwanted. Fears that are never evaluated consciously have a tendency to grow stronger. The reason is simple behavioral conditioning — when you avoid something you fear (either consciously or subconsciously), you automatically reinforce the avoidance behavior. So when you (even unknowingly) avoid working on your goal because of a hidden fear of success, you actually reinforce the habit of procrastination, so as time goes by, it becomes harder and harder to get yourself to take action. Insidious!

Asking, “What will happen if I succeed?” can solve this problem because it focuses your conscious attention on those fears. Fear has a tendency to shrink under direct examination, making it easier for you to take action. When I say that fear shrinks, another way of stating this is that subconscious behavioral conditioning weakens under conscious scrutiny. I know some people dislike the word “fear” with respect to their own behavior — don’t get hung up on the exact wording; call it “avoidance behavior” if that’s more to your liking.

But an additional benefit is that you can also devise intelligent work-arounds for those fears-made-conscious, some of which may indeed be valid signals of unsolved problems. For example, going back to the weight loss example, if you lose a lot of weight, you probably will need new clothes. And if you don’t have the money to buy new clothes, then that is a real problem you’ll need to address (unless you don’t mind wearing oversized outfits). Left unacknowledged, even a simple problem like this can be enough to subconsciously sabotage you from achieving your goal. But once you examine the situation consciously and figure out a way to deal with it in advance, you’re sending a message to your subconscious that you needn’t fear this problem because you have a practical way to solve it.

Now let’s consider the opposite side. Suppose you ask, “What will happen if I succeed?” and upon considering all the side effects, you realize that you don’t actually want to achieve the goal at all. The negatives outweigh the positives. I encountered this when I made a plan to grow my games business but didn’t seem to make as much progress as I wanted. When I asked this magic question, I realized that I didn’t really want to achieve the goal with all its side effects — what I really wanted was to transition to writing and speaking full time, and further building my games business would actually take me farther from that more important goal. Growing my games business seemed like a goal I should want, but when I really thought about where I’d be if I achieved that goal, I realized it wouldn’t be the success I truly wanted. That was a difficult realization for me… to recognize that my original ladder of success was now leaning against the wrong building. So I actually had to “unset” that goal once I really understood the likely consequences of achieving it.

Even now as I set goals in the direction of writing and speaking as my new career, I recognize that there are big side effects. I simply don’t have the mental bandwidth for two full-time careers. One of the hardest side effects for me was letting go of the goals and dreams I had for my games business. All those creative ideas for new games that will never be… and the would-be players who will never experience them…. But this is outweighed by what will happen as I succeed in my new career. To create a new game that challenges, entertains, and uplifts people is wonderful; however, being able to help people grow fulfills me even more. I found it a very enlightening process to review all these side effects and one by one to acknowledge that I accept them.

What will happen if you succeed? If you lose the weight… get the date… earn the promotion… start the business… get pregnant… quit smoking… become a millionaire… stretch yourself?