Truth

A confused, run-a-muck ego can't eliminate itself, it's way to busy doing everything it can to protect itself, in fact everything you do in your life is to protect your ego, self agenda and your self image. Of course you should accept your ego and lower-self, a mature ego accepts itself, a mature ego can be open minded to certain contradictions in it's worldview, a mature ego is open to the idea that it might not exist, you can't do both, you're exactly right. Why? because an ego can't protect itself and kill itself at the same time.

There's a lot of black and white thinking going on there buddy, time for you to realize the massive GREY area that you deny to yourself everyday.

Alright day 4: Been kind of a busy day with work and my daily rituals. today going to work I felt a less and less need for knowledge and music, being present in the moment felt interestingly more peaceful, and I love my knowledge and music. I usually just stuff my face with my music or knowledge, but today that exact thought occurred to me, stuffing my face, trying to resist the present moment, the void, the emptiness, the eternal now, whatever you wanna call it, what actually ended up happening not distracting and stuffing my face with that stuff is I ran into a technique, just as Leo talked about in "How To Be Ruthlessly Effective At Anything" this technique was doing absolute wonders for me for the intention I set, I plan to be using it more and more, that technique involves understanding beliefs, identifying limiting or negative beliefs, and changing those limiting or negative beliefs, with the ultimate intent of systematically stopping myself from creating new problems in my life. I really feel this will help me realize my ultimate intention for this 7 day challenge and help me with much much more. so far this challenge has been a huge new step for me. let's keep going.

Day 3: Really starting to grasp addiction, it seems everything I do, EVERYTHING, is to distract myself of this constant void or emptiness of life. I mean, it's pure emptiness, it just goes and goes and goes and all I do is fill this void with stuff to do, whether that's thinking about things, or distracting myself with YouTube or knowledge even as important knowledge is to me. I sat for 2 hours today, I really got to thinking like.. what if I just did nothing for 12 hours a day? I mean, I got all these important things I should be doing, -- staying with my commitments, my meditation habit, my workout routine, reading habit, planning and strategizing. What if I just didn't do any of that? and it ended up being a really peaceful feeling like, I don't really have to do any of that. it's like all my problems just went out the window, I didn't have to do any of it, of course I still am but, it was still a pretty insightful thing to know that just being and not really thinking, it's actually really peaceful not running around chasing things, after that everything I did felt peaceful, although I did watch a YouTube video or two it wasn't that long like 20 minutes, and then I started focusing on my intentions again without distractions. but that was a pretty big insight for me. Looking forward to keep going here.

Day 2: I've had a ton of insights today, in fact it takes me back to the days when I first started cutting out distractions, but anyway, I had some really deep insights today, but out of all of them the deepest insight was the fact that I've re-focused my life by staying away from distractions, I've literally started a new vision for my life, a new structure, and realized that if I'm gonna be on my path I can't be distracted, at all, I realize that everything I do I have to have a set intention towards my path. If it's not towards my ultimate intention on my path then it's a distraction. And my ego really didn't like hearing that. but I just get the sense that this is how to get change in my life. all my efforts have to be concentrated to reach a breakthrough. I contemplated life deeply today and will continue to but I just realized, this is my one life and I don't want to waste it, and as long as I do my best to stay on my path I can die happy and no regrets (or at least minimize them haha). Everything else feels like a distraction, comfort, instant gratification. I just realize I can't live the life I want if I'm doing that stuff..I don't know how long I'm gonna stay on track here, I realize all these insights and realizations mean nothing unless I commit to them.. I fear me falling back into old ways, being distracted, doing useless pointless crap. But, I gotta try, I'm aware this is all talk. But I'm only writing this because I committed to this challenge of posting each day. So this is me posting

@Argue Go ahead, as my signature says, "good artists copy, great artists steal"

I'm down for this, except I'm gonna mostly contemplate life, I'm only gonna do what I think needs to be done and nothing else, no internet, music, nothing, for this entire week. I'm really curious to see if I can do this, the other day I just sat and did nothing for 4 hours straight and that was pretty peaceful and surprised I could do that but my intention wasn't realized. I'm resisting even posting this, but shit, I feel this is gonna be interesting. I'll post here everyday a little something that I learned or something like that. Here's my personal structure. Intention --> to understand addictions, deeply contemplate life to motivate me to know and do the things I really want, ultimately detach and create non neediness. Anything that fulfills this intention is okay to do. Questions to contemplate --> What would I miss the most about life? What do I want to get out of this life? What is really worth doing? What isn't worth doing? How am I being small minded? How do I need to reorganize my life? Ground yourself everyday in this structure.

Just bought both Awaken The Giant Within and Unlimited Power, excited to read both of them

So I've only just recently been opened up to NLP, I've always had an intuitive sense that this was the next level. I'm looking to find the most effective and hard hitting information on the subject (books, courses, audios, videos,) I already have some good places to start but I still want more information and more perspectives that I could have missed. My intentions are to understand and master it and achieve my intentions that I create. I really feel this is very foundational for creating success and honestly to just be happier in general. Thanks to anyone who can contribute.

Yeah I've been looking for a solid system to help lay the foundation (along with tons of other techniques) to change my thinking. Thanks for the recommendation!

If you took the life purpose course this problem would turn into a non-issue. You have no core values, I value A LOT of things too, but I still have 10-15 core values that lay the foundation for myself. Aligning yourself with your values can be really hard to do, which is why a lot of people are miserable, they'd rather stay comfortable. I was customizing my own values in the beginning so I know exactly what you mean, but when I took the life purpose course it got right to the core of my values, he gives a huge list of the top values of people. The course would do wonders for you.

Sorry.. had to do it...

There's a fantastic intro to NLP on YouTube and some of the books he mentioned are the ones I'm gonna look into. --> Tony Robbins - Unlimited Power -> Tony Robbins - Awaken The Giant Within Also some books on audible NLP for dummies Banned NLP secrets - Daniel Smith Success Secrets - James Alder This is why I made the topic because I'm not exactly sure where all the best content is but I'm gonna start here anyway.

If I was in a good position with that type of money I wouldn't even second guess it.

Oops, I meant premise, not assumption. I personally never had any one who knew about anything to do with enlightenment, I stumbled across it. So I know how important it is to get started on this journey. I lacked wisdom or honestly just curiosity in general, which I bet I'm not alone there. Which is why people shouting opinions and beliefs is still important even if its still such because it built that wisdom and curiosity in me which I never really cared or even thought to have about my existential self.

When I say the hard way I meant having key insights or knowledge to even start the journey, not how hard it can be which is the assumption your entire paragraph was made even though you make good points, I mean being exposed to enlightenment in general and doing our best to stay out of fantasy land and maybe shorten the time from decades to years while doing our best of not confusing the map for the territory.

That's only a trap for people with no awareness. There's a vast difference in being aware of it as just a belief and actually being identified with the belief. You can still give your opinions knowing its just another belief, if no one gave their opinions on enlightenment, no one would know about enlightenment or they'd have to find out the really hard way.

1. If you already have 3 techniques you want to try, the most adequet one to use is the one you intuit will create the best result for the intention you've created. Just pick one. If your constantly thinking "Where do I start?", you won't start. Again the effectiveness will be intuitive, just assume it will take you a lifetime, don't get too structured about the testing process, you might try it once and find out it isn't effective or vise versa. That's where intuition for the most effective result of your intention comes in. 2. Again judging the technique is trying what's best and building an intuition for it. Did it work or didn't it? Bottom line. Could you have done something different to make this work better? 3. You're focusing on the wrong things. This is why Leo talks about it taking weeks and months, because over that period of time you find and inuit what works for your unique individual self. Some things are universal. Some very. Don't get too structured and detail oriented 4. Again let go of that detailed structure your again focusing on the wrong things. If your technique isn't serving your intention then its pretty obvious its not working anymore, there's always a new better way of doing something, have adaptability, adapt to the always changing internal and external environments. And number 5. Yes! Use the better technique. Again your still attaching to structures, this question is based on the assumption that it's going to "destroy momentum". It might seem this way, but thats a fear of you letting go of your structure. If this technique better serves your intention then you should be willing to throw everything out to make it happen as emotionally difficult as that might be. Remember -->have adaptability. Its important to stick to your commitments but if you trust that this new strategy is better toward your ultimate intent then its fine to change.

Its gotten to the point where I take notes and literally build a system for every principle, key insight, and mindset for the topic he talks about. I used to just listen and listen, but it still felt intangible, it helped build a big picture, but besides that it just became mental masturbation.

It's removing the need for external validation and success. you might still be chasing the same desires but, with a truly healthy mindset. --> Healthy authentic motivation instead of neurotic, egoic, needy motivation which is cause for a lot of pointless pain and suffering.

SING IT I've actually been listening to this song a lot lately haha

I really love that you posted these, I'm doing the same thing, but not limited to Leo's stuff, it's included with other information and other principles from multiple perspectives.

You chose to invest (whether you want to say someone tempted you or pushed you into it), it's no one else's fault if you lack knowledge on how to properly invest your money. You're responsible for your "response" to this opportunity this person gave you. No one made you, you chose to no matter how hard it might be to look at the failure. What should you do? ....Take Responsibility, learn, understand why it happened,learn how to prevent it (if you lost your money), learn how to properly invest, find out what you can do now about it, learn what's currently happening with your investment, ask questions, study investing, learn the principles of investing. study, study, study, contact people who've invested in this person, check legitimacy. I don't even invest and I can come up with all this crap. Do what you think needs to be done and don't fret over the loss, take responsibility for what you CAN respond to RIGHT NOW in the present moment, not what happened in the past.

Recently just me nodding has helped a lot with this, I once heard that controlling your body when you can't control your mind is the best answer and vice versa, when I first heard that I didn't understand it, but now it makes sense. Thanks for reminding me of that

Well that's unfortinute, also before you go a side note, your pre conceived notions of who is enlightened or isn't enlightened is a trap keeping you from enlightenment