As a Man Thinketh The Classic Manual on Shaping Your Mind

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1 TM Brian Johnson s PhilosophersNotes More Wisdom in Less Time THE BIG IDEAS Dream Seeds Plant yours today!! Cherish Your Ideals And your greatest vision will soon be yours. Mining for Gold Mine, mine, mine. Dreamers Saviors of the world. Exercise Your Mind Hit the mental gym. 80% of Success Is showing up. Spring of Knowledge KNOW you can do it. Soul Magnet Be your highest Self. The dreamers are the saviors of the world. from As a Man Thinketh I ve nominated a couple books for the most densely packed with wisdom books out there. This one may just take the prize. It s one long brilliant quote. It s a short read. Very short. Get a free download of it on the site. I ve personally read it dozens of times and I m excited to share some of my favorite gems! We ll start with one of my favorite quotes ever: DREAM SEEDS The greatest achievement was at first and for a time a dream. The oak sleeps in the acorn; the bird waits in the egg; and in the highest vision of the soul a waking angel stirs. Dreams are the seedlings of realities. As a Man Thinketh The Classic Manual on Shaping Your Mind BY JAMES ALLEN PHILOSOPHER S NOTES PAGES What are your greatest dreams? First, we ve gotta KNOW that EVERY great achievement was at first and for a time a dream. For some weird reason we see someone we admire and make the bizarre assumption that they ve ALWAYS been who they are now. Huh? So Tiger Woods just woke up one morning and was the world s greatest golfer ever? Hmmm Maybe not. He clearly had talent and an incredibly supportive family but he also had a dream. An audacious vision since he was a kid to be the greatest. EVER. Who says stuff like that?!? (Hint: people who may one day realize their dreams.) Then, with that crystal clear intention, he planted that dream seed in the fertile soil of incredibly disciplined, hard work. I ll be surprised (shocked actually), if we could find a golfer who works harder and smarter than Tiger... who more systematically maps out his season, his next tournament, his day, his training. And you know what happens when you marry that kind of intention with that kind of impeccability? Tiger Woods. So, what about YOU? Cherish your visions. Cherish your ideals. What are you most passionate about? What is it that you and only you can give to the world? What s your greatest dream? If you have it defined, crystallize it. If it s not clear yet, your work is to discover your work! And as we crystallize the vision (it s always evolving and crystallizing, btw), we need to wake up the angel that stirs in that seed through our diligent, patient and persistent work ethic. And, guess what? Give it time and your dream will prove to be the seedling of your new reality. 1 PhilosophersNotes As a Man Thinketh

2 The dreamers are the saviors of the world. In the process, remember to: CHERISH YOUR IDEALS Cherish your visions. Cherish your ideals. Cherish the music that stirs in your heart, the beauty that forms in your mind, the loveliness that drapes your purest thoughts, for out of them will grow all delightful conditions, all heavenly environment; of these, if you but remain true to them, your world will at last be built. Ahhh Cherish your visions. Cherish your ideals. Cherish the music that stirs in your heart As you know, the world tends to be a little unsupportive (just a tad sometimes, eh? :) of our highest visions. Which makes it that much more important that we truly cherish our vision and our ideals. Don t flinch. Don t compromise. Surround yourself with people who get you and, if you but remain true to these ideals, your world will at last be built. Keep on mining, my friend! MINING FOR GOLD Only by much searching and mining are gold and diamonds obtained, and man can find every truth connected with his being if he will dig deep into the mine of his soul. Are you mining? Have you ever REALLY mined your soul to discover exactly who you are and what your destiny is? Or did you lazily look around and then give up? Well, no complaining allowed for you if you haven t rolled up your sleeves, busted out the pickaxes and gone deep into the mine of your soul to figure out what you re here to do. :) When you read a book (or one of these Notes), do you actually do the exercises right then and there or do you say to yourself, Oh. That looks interesting. Maybe I ll get to that when I get some more time. Let me just fold the corner of the page so I remember to come back to it sometime soon. Riiiiiiiight. That s not gonna get you very far. If you re committed to finding the gold and diamonds (real and metaphorical) in your life, you MUST learn to dig deeply at every opportunity. I ve filled up dozens (!!!) of journals with answers to the seemingly mundane and/or benign questions like: What would you do if you weren t afraid? What are your greatest strengths? What are 5 things you re most proud of? What are 5 things you will be most proud of? What s your dharma/purpose/reason for being on the planet? What is it that you, and only you, can give to the world? If you had only 6 months to live, what would you do? If you won $100 million in the lottery, what would you do? If you met a genie and he gave you 3 wishes, what would you ask for? I ve answered all of those questions (and countless more) more than once. 2 PhilosophersNotes As a Man Thinketh

3 A particular train of thought persisted in, be it good or bad, cannot fail to produce its results on the character and circumstances. A man cannot directly choose his circumstances, but he can choose his thoughts, and so indirectly, yet surely, shape his circumstances. And I KNOW that work is one of the main reasons why I get paid to read and write and optimize my life while inspiring others to do the same! (Pinch me. :) How about you? You mining? (Just got an image of Ben Stiller s character coughing from the black lung he got in one day of mining in the classic movie, Zoolander. Is that you when it comes to this stuff?!? Come on! Put on your best looking mining gear, strike a pose and get to work! :) DREAMERS Dream lofty dreams, and as you dream, so shall you become. Your Vision is the promise of what you shall one day be. Your Ideal is the prophecy of what you shall at last unveil. Again: What are your dreams? Who shall you become? Hold that vision. Your Ideal is the prophecy of what you shall at last unveil. EXERCISE YOUR MIND As the physically weak man can make himself strong by careful and patient training, so the man of weak thoughts can make them strong by exercising himself in right thinking. My mind actually hurts as I think of this one. I ve been to one of the more challenging mental boot camps you can imagine: a 10-day silent Vipassana meditation class led by S.N. Goenka. Imagine this: you check yourself in for 10 (!!!) days of silence. The last words you will speak for 10 days (aside from a few possible words with your instructor) are Thank you when you hand over all your possible distractions to the staff member collecting your stuff: your computer (no Internet, no IM, no !), your Blackberry (no , no text messages, no calls!), your journal (no writing!), your books (no reading!), ANYTHING that you brought other than clothes and bedding. Um. Silence! OK. Now get yourself all limbered up to get up at 4am and then SIT for 10 (!!) hours a day in silent meditation. I thought I was going to go insane and nearly left before the end of the second day as I watched my mind jump from THOUGHT to THOUGHT to OMG(!) endless thoughts as I tried to do the seemingly simple yet proving-to-be-impossible feat of noticing my breath come in and out of my nostrils. Can t I just do it for a few breaths in a row?!? Nope. Torture. You may think I m exaggerating (and I may be a little) but you go try to sit in meditation for 10 hours a day for 10 days. :) In the midst of all that exercising of my mind, here are some of the coolest things I learned from S.N. Goenka s teachings and my experiences: 1. The smaller the area of focus, the greater the mind s clarity/power. This is huge. For the first 3 days (!!!!) we simply focused on our breath coming in and out working to feel the sensations on the triangle encompassing the upper lip to the upper nostrils. Our teacher s point was very simple: we MUST develop the strength of mind (Samadhi) to be able to focus our attention. And, the smaller the area of focus, the greater the mind s power. PhilosophersNotes As a Man Thinketh 3

4 If you would perfect your body, guard your mind. I got a huge flash of insight on this one related to setting goals in one s life the more narrow the focus, the more powerful the intention and the more likely you ll be able to rock it. 2. Strong determination. This one s my favorite. During the 10 hours of meditation every day, we worked in roughly 60 minute chunks. We were allowed to move to a comfortable position/rest as necessary. EXCEPT for three, 60 minute chunks each day (after day 4) when we were to sit in strong determination committed to NOT flinching for the entire hour we couldn t open our legs, our hands or our eyes. This is a reasonably big deal because, if you ve ever sat in meditation (and especially if you don t sit a couple hours a day before the class), your body tends to get a little cranky about thirty minutes into it. But you can t move. I committed to going 17 for 17 during the course and learned SO much as I honored that commitment. Perhaps THE key to the success in my business life is due to my strong determination to reach a positive outcome when I committed to my prior two businesses (eteamz and Zaadz), I went through A LOT of pain and obstacles to make it work. I now see just how powerful it is to bring this practice of strong determination even more powerfully to my professional life and, of course, to the rest of my life. I ll be writing a lot more on this. 3. Equanimity. One of my favorite words before the course and DEFINITELY one of my favorite words now. This is one of the keys to enlightenment. As we bring awareness to our lives, and wisdom to our experience of the impermanent nature of reality, we can respond with equanimity not losing our balance of mind as we realize that all things rise and all things pass therefore there is no need to crave or avoid these impermanent realities. 4. Anicca, anicca, anicca. Anicca is pronounced uh-knee-chuh and, in Pali the word means impermanence. It describes the reality of nature. Everything that arises passes. You. Me. This emotion. That emotion. EVERYTHING that we experience passes. So why crave? Why avoid? Anicca, anicca, anicca Thought is the fountain of action, life and manifestation; make the fountain pure, and all will be pure. 5. Elephant: 5 blind peeps; 5 partial truths. You may have heard this one. 5 blind people who have never seen an elephant each touch a different part and describe what an elephant is. One grabs the leg and says, An elephant is like a tree trunk. Another grabs the tail and says, An elephant is like a broom. And so on. The point: they all express their limited and partial truth of reality. And so do we all The trick: to recognize that our vantage point is only one of many partial truths and to appreciate the different perspectives from which others see the world. 6. Gifts not received belong to the giver. Classic story of an individual coming to the Buddha with anger and violent rage. The Buddha did nothing but calmly smile and ask the man, If someone comes to your house and offers you a gift that you refuse to accept, whose gift is it? The angry man replied, Well, the person who intended to give the gift would still own it. And the Buddha said, And so it is with your anger. Let s refuse to accept unwanted gifts and be mindful about what we re giving to others! 7. Work diligently patiently persistently I don t know how many times Goenka said Work diligently. Diligently. Work patiently and persistently. Patiently and persistently. You re bound to be successful. Bound to be Successful. That s my new favorite quote. Think about that. If we work DILIGENTLY, PATIENTLY and PERSISTENTLY we are BOUND to be successful. Amazing 8. Seeds of Corn. Great story: the woman who heads up the household dies. In Indian culture, the woman controls the family finances so the widower needs to select one of his four sons wives to become the new head. He gives each five pieces of corn and asks them to watch over them and bring them to him in four years for him to decide who will take over. 4 PhilosophersNotes As a Man Thinketh

5 Pure thoughts crystallize into habits of temperance and self-control, which solidify into circumstances of repose and peace. Thoughts of courage, self-reliance, and decision crystallize into manly habits, which solidify into circumstances of success, plenty, and freedom. The first daughter says, Oh! What a waste of time. The crazy old man. And throws them away. The second thinks they may have magical powers and eats them. The third takes them and puts them on her alter next to her gods and worships them each day with the others. The fourth takes them and plants them in the land behind the house. In four years each tells her story. The fourth says, We will need help getting all the corn from the hundreds of plants that have grown from the five seeds I planted. She got the job. Allen was clearly influenced by the Hindu and Buddhist principles of right thought. I think he would have dug Vipassana boot camp 10-day Silent Meditation Classes. 80% OF SUCCESS Eighty percent of success is showing up. I love that. Are we in an echo chamber? Because I seem to be hearing that wisdom everywhere I look! :) From Plato: The beginning is the most important part of the work. To Martin Luther King, Jr: Take the first step in faith. You don t have to see the whole staircase. Just the first step. To Tim Ferriss in his genius book The 4-Hour Workweek: Tomorrow becomes never. No matter how small the task, take the first step now! To the eminently quotable Paulo Coelho (see Notes) in his classic Veronika Decides to Die: Live. If you live, God will live with you. If you refuse to run his risks, he ll retreat to that distant heaven and be merely a subject for philosophical speculation. Everyone knows this, but no one takes the first step, perhaps for fear of being called insane. What s your biggest dream? And, what s your FIRST step? Doesn t need to be some huge ol thing, just a first step that ll move you however tiny the movement is in the direction of your dreams! 80% of success is showing up. Take your first step. And jump into the: SPRING OF KNOWLEDGE The will to do springs from the knowledge that we can do. I love that. Reminds me of Seneca s wisdom (see Notes on Letters from a Stoic): It is not because things are difficult that we do not dare; it is because we do not dare that things are difficult. David Schwartz says the same thing in The Magic of Thinking Big (see Notes): Here is the first step toward success. It s a basic step. It can t be avoided. Step One: Believe in yourself, believe you can succeed. And, Henry Ford says: Whether you think you can or you think you can t, you re right. So, how about you? You KNOW you can succeed? Awesome. Gotta feed that well from which our will to do springs!!! PhilosophersNotes As a Man Thinketh 5

6 Men do not attract that which they want, but that which they are. SOUL MAGNET The soul attracts that which it secretly harbors; that which it loves, and also that which it fears. It reaches the height of its cherished aspirations. It falls to the level of its unchastened desires and circumstances are the means by which the soul receives its own. That seems to beg the obvious question: Who are you? What are you attracting? And, it reminds me of Esther and Jerry Hicks wisdom on the Law of Attraction (see Notes on Ask and It Is Given for more mojo): Every thought vibrates, every thought radiates a signal, and every thought attracts a matching signal back. We call that process the Law of Attraction. The Law of Attraction says: That which is like unto itself is drawn. And so, you might see the powerful Law of Attraction as a sort of Universal Manager that sees to it that all thoughts that match one another line up. What signal are you tuned to? Guess what? You re going to attract that into your life. My recommendation? Let s tune into love, appreciation, service, kindness, abundance, beautiful dreams and bliss. And watch these things flow into your life. Brian Johnson, Chief Philosopher If you liked this Note, you ll probably like Ralph Waldo Emerson The Magic of Thinking Big Spiritual Economics Ask and It Is Given The Science of Getting Rich About the Author of As a Man Thinketh JAMES ALLEN James Allen (born November 28, 1864 in Leicester, England - died 1912) was a philosophical writer of British nationality, known for his inspirational books and poetry. Allen was 15 when his father, a businessman, was robbed and murdered. He left school to work full-time in several British manufacturing firms to help support the family. He later married Lily L. Allen and became an executive secretary for a large company. At age 38, inspired by the writings of Leo Tolstoy, he retired from employment. Allen along with his wife and their daughter, Nohra moved to a small cottage in Ilfracombe, Devon, England to pursue a simple life of contemplation. There he wrote for nine years, producing 19 works. He also edited and published a magazine, The Light of Reason. (from Wikipedia) About the Author of This Note BRIAN JOHNSON Brian Johnson is a lover of wisdom (aka a Philosopher ) and a passionate student of life who s committed to inspiring and empowering millions of people to live their greatest lives as he studies, embodies and shares the universal truths of optimal living. He harts his job. 6 PhilosophersNotes As a Man Thinketh