Mindset Mastery Moment

For years, we’ve been programmed to believe that wanting money isn’t very noble. In fact, having lived most of my life in the Christian sub-culture, I’ve struggled with the idea that money is bad.

When I was 18, I was involved in Multi-Level Marketing and I was turned onto books like Think and Grow Rich, As a Man Thinketh, The Magic of Thinking Big and more. I was given these by Christian leaders in our business... and the books have this quasi-Christian undertone, but ...

As I got older and I became more entrenched in the evangelical Christian culture, I heard a different message. It implied ... money should be the last thing on which we focus.

Yes, most will say “it’s the love of money...” But as soon as you doing something in an effort to financially improve yourself, you’re made to feel like you’re loving money.

But there was a double-standard that popped up. There was this mixed message that was given.

It Seems Working for Money Is Frowned Upon but Asking for Money is Ok

I can tell you... money isn’t bad when there’s a ministry or organization that needs it. That’s when they go after people with a lot of money; wine and dine them and treat them like gold itself, in order to curry their favor and garner a donation.

I’ve worked in Christian radio for years and been bewildered by the difference in the message between normal days and the days when we’re raising money.

Most days, it’s a message that says life is about a lot more than money and we won’t find any satisfaction in have more money.

Pledge Drive or Share-a-thon days are filled with messages that say “money is the only thing that’s going to keep us afloat” and “we need three more people with a monthly gift of $20 right now.”

We vilify people with a lot of money all year long and then for two weeks we work to gain their favor.

If You Live in the Western World - You’re Rich.

Which makes me wonder, should I be driving around in a $10,000 car (not expensive at all) talking about how working for money is bad or less noble than something else?

I always struggled with the idea that we spend $50 on a night at the movies and convince people they shouldn’t focus on making money. It’s all relative. It all depends on what you believe is normal.

But, is there a permissible norm? If I grew up in a 20,000 square foot home with a parent driving a Bentley, what would I think is “focusing too much on money?"

If you grew up in a public housing project with one car to the family and it was barely running, what would you consider is “focusing too much on money?"

Isn’t it all relative? To one person a brand new Toyota is sacrificing and to another person this is a grand luxury.

So, What Does it All Come Down To?

It comes down to your heart.

All these moral rules we’re give are NOT about segregating those who will die and go up versus those who will die and go down. It’s just not...

All this morality we find about not loving money, is to keep us from mentally living in hell right now.

Loving money will leave you frustrated, in turmoil and and tormented by the chase. Love people, love service, love helping those who have a need.

When you do this, the world has a way of rewarding you with all the feelings you hope to get from having money.

• Significance
• Personal Value
• Purpose

Here’s an important distinction - Having money is great. Having money is an indicator you helped a lot of people get what they wanted.

This isn’t the case for everybody, but for someone who does what we said minutes ago, focuses on service and let’s the rewards come on their own, money is a great thing.

Serve More.. Have More.

But, this doesn’t answer my original question of whether WANTING money is wrong.

I honestly don’t think it’s a question of RIGHT vs WRONG.

It’s a matter of whether you’re doing what is healthiest for you. Is wanting a burger wrong? Is wanting a gin and tonic wrong?

If you want a gin and tonic because you’re hoping it will address your internal pain, it’s not WRONG in a good person vs bad-person kind of way, but it’s certainly not the best thing for you, given your needs.

The same goes for foods and yes, shopping.. houses, cars, vacations.

If you are seeking comfort for your soul in what you have, then you are honestly cutting yourself short of the amazing life you can have. Is that being a bad person or a person who is missing something?

Ask Yourself Today, What’s Motivating Me?

Try to shift to a motivation of service. Serve people. Joyously and generously give of yourself to others as they need. Don’t be foolish, don’t give something of value to you to someone who finds no value in it.

This is the scripture that says “Don’t cast your pearls before swine.”

This is just ...

Events don’t have meaning - We give the events meaning

The meaning of events exists only in our mind. Outside of our mind, the events have no meaning at all.

Our emotional response to events comes from the meaning we give them and the way we FEEL about that meaning. So, given the fact that our emotions are based on our reaction to the meaning of an event and we create the meaning of the event, then we control our emotions.

Peace doesn’t come when we have peace around us, but when we have peace within us.

See, we give events meaning in our minds. Our emotional response to events is based on the meaning they have. So when we have peace within, it doesn’t matter what happens outside of us, we will have peace. Peace is independent of what is happening around us.

Let’s look at how one may react to a particular situation given our internal state.

Saturday morning, you open up your weather app and you see that it’s supposed to be 95 degrees with nothing but sunshine. How do you react to that?

If you were planning on going to the beach and spending some time in the water with your family, that’s a fantastic event. This means the water is going to feel great and the sun will help us get a tan.

If you were planning on pulling out some old tree stumps in the yard, that’s a horrible forecast. It’s going to be hot and the sun is provably going to burn you.

The event is the exact same thing... a weather forecast. The meaning of the event is determined internally.

If you just planted some grass seed and it starts raining, you react with happiness. This will help.

If your lawn needs to be mowed and it starts raining, you react disappointed, as you won’t be able to cut it until tomorrow.

There’s a verse in the the book of Matthew that says the rain falls on those who are good and those who are bad. The rain has no meaning. One sees the rain as good and the other bad. Tomorrow it could be reversed. The rain has no meaning.

Here’s a Personal Example - My View of Myself as Not Good Enough.

I’m in my late 40’s and my entire life, I’ve had a limiting belief that I was inferior to others. I wasn’t as good as my brothers and pretty much anyone else who I worked or lived life with.

I’ve shared this with you before, I’m the youngest in my family and honestly, I don’t have a lot of memories of my parents telling me I wasn’t good enough, but I do have a LOT of memories of that being associated with my older brothers. They’re about a year apart in age. This means, they did a lot of things at the same time. Tying shoes, riding a bike, hitting a baseball and learning to throw a football.

I was 4 and 5 years younger than them which isn’t a big deal at age 47, or even 27, but when you’re 7 and they’re 11 and 12, that’s a lifetime of difference, almost literally twice my age. They had learned twice as much as I had and they were at least twice as good as I was.

Because kids that age were able to go further from the house, our street would often have teenagers playing football or baseball with kids from several streets over. There never were that many kids on my street that were my age. So I was trying to fit in and play with kids who ere almost twice my age.

You can imagine how this made me feel. The one thing everyone valued, throwing or catching a football, or throwing, hitting and catching a baseball, I sucked at. This made me feel like I wasn’t good enough.

My brothers, like a LOT of older siblings, were pretty much forced to watch their little brother if they wanted to go do something. Mom and dad would say keep an eye on your little brother.”

But I wasn’t bad at everything, only the thing that this group was really good at, sports. As I got older, even in middle school, I never wanted to play team sports. I always opted to run laps around the baseball field instead of actually playing baseball. In high school, I didn’t try out for football or baseball, but instead, I joined the track team where I could compete on my own. I was good at running.

I was also good at being goofy and entertaining people. But that wasn’t really valued when you’re trying to beat the kids from the next block over. In fact, it was seen as a negative. “Come on, be serious, focus!”

Focus? I was the "King of Imagination.: I could take my GI Joe Command RV center and play for hours on end in my room. I remember having a rock fireplace and I would take my little army men and have them mount massive battles that would last two or three hours. Focus? That means turning off my imagination.

Imagine if we had a street full of kids all doing a talent show, with magic, juggling, ventriloquism and puppets. How much of an expert would that jock feel like? They can throw a ball, big deal, that doesn’t win you much in a talent show. All of a sudden they would have thoughts like “I’m not goo...

“Concentrate all your thoughts upon the work in hand. The Sun’s rays do not burn until brought to a focus” – Alexander Graham Bell In this episode, you’ll learn why it’s vital that you take all of your energy and focus on one specific area in order to burn through to success. It’s not about [...]

The post Ep. #12 – Laser Focus Pierces the Barriers to Success appeared first on P. Desmond Adams.

I’m sure you’ve had one of those situations in your life where there’s something incredibly irritating to you. I have...

A few weeks ago, a friend of mine came to me and said “Man, I think I’m just not going to hang out with them anymore. I’m just going to do everything I can to avoid them."

But is that best?

CAUTION: Listen, what I’m talking about in this episode is an annoying relationship, not a dangerous one. Remember, if you’re in any sort of danger, you must seek safety. Don’t justify endangering yourself or your children in an effort to “fix someone.” Let a professional do that while you’re secluded in safety.

So, assuming we’re talking about a non-threatening situation... let’s continue.

I hear so many people in the personal development world saying “choose who you surround yourself with. You don’t need to be around people who you don’t want to be around."

But... I’m not sure that’s a response driven by love. Well, it’s love, but love of self or selfish interests.

I share this all the time... we will find peace in our lives when we are driven by love.

So how do we LOVE those who annoy us or those we don’t feel compatible with? Maybe even our enemies... What’s it mean to Love our Enemies?

First... Ask yourself if the your negative impression of the other person comes from your own animosity.

Maybe It’s Just You

One way to do this is to ask others in your social circle if they see the same issues with the other person. If they don’t... you probably need to look inward even more than you thought.

We all... in EVERY situation need to look at what we can improve internally... but some of these situations may require even more internal review.

Pushing Those We Don’t Like Away Is the Cause... not the Solution.

One of our deepest core desires is to feel valued and valuable. When someone becomes difficult to deal with it’s often because they don’t feel valued.

When we push them away, we’re only compounding the situation.

Yes, it’s them who caused the issue but

Create a Security and Negativity Disappears.

It’s insecurity that causes people to react in a negative way to others. Insecurity...

Isolation is not a solution to the problem, it’s simply a removal of it.

Avoiding difficult people, even if it’s just for a short time, is really the act of avoiding an opportunity to improve ourselves.

We all want to survive. Attacking those who threaten us is simply a way for us to attempt survival.

We should ask... what is the threat to this person and why?

Avoiding Resistance Perpetuates Weakness

Resistance makes us stronger. Just like in a gym, it’s when you face resistance that your muscles are strengthened.

It’s when we face relationship resistance that our ability to have strong relationships is strengthened.

A LOT of people who suggest avoiding those we don’t like are also people who may have external happiness or external signs of happiness, but if you ask them, they don’t feel that internal... that deep happiness.

Those You Spot VS Those Who Spot For You

We have to realize the people we hang out with aren’t always our support.. sometimes we’re their support.

Know who you’re spotting for and who you need to spot for you.

Listen, if you don’t want to spot for them, why does someone else, stronger than you, want to spot for you. Maybe you’re their annoying person?

When we realize we’re all connected as one, we understand this doesn’t benefit society as a whole. It’s not improving anything.

Our mission is to love... that’s it. Love.

Follow me for a minute...

• Every once in a while, you may look at someone else and think “wow, they are messed up.”
• Every once in a while, someone may look at you and think “Wow, they are messed up."
• Every once in a while, someone may look at that person and think “Wow, they are messed up.

Possible? Agree?

Every single person can have someone else look at them and think “Wow, they are messed up."

Do you think, if you followed this along for 10, 20, 100 or 1000 levels or more, you’d eventually get to someone who just has it all figured out and they’re doing fantastic?

Following this path, do you think this is a progression UPWARD in character?

Is this is character pyramid and there’s one person at the very top who has it all figured out and is beyond the judgement of others?

No. you’re right. The person we reach after following this path for 1,000 occurrences probably has 10 people who could look at certain areas of their life and think “Wow, they are messed up."

In fact, here’s what we’d find out.

Some of those people who are looking judgmentally at that 1,000th person were ones someone looked down at 300 people ago, or 250 people ago.

The truth is, it’s all a giant CIRCLE of judgement.

After we’re gone through 1,000 iterations of judgement, we’re guaranteed to have a good number of the people who were judged earlier, back in the judgement game again.

It’s almost like a never ending game of leap frog. Once someone jumps over you, it’s time to get back in line waiting for your next turn to jump over someone else... and then have someone jump over you.

It’s the Judgement Circle, inside of which we all get trapped.

A perpetual game of judgement.

There’s only one escape route... and that’s to refuse to get back in line once someone has jumped over (or judged) you. Just don’t get back in line waiting to jump over (or judge) someone else.

When we jump out of the chain, we set ourselves apart from that game.

BE CAREFUL! - This is a prime place to start judging in another way. “Those fools and all their judgement games.” Ah hah! See, there you area again, back in the game yourself.

We won’t completely eliminate the judgement others have on us, but we will slow it down dramatically.

Continue on this path and I promise, you’ll see an EXPONENTIAL DECREASE in the judgement you experience in your life.

By the very nature of things, you’ll find you change who you spend time with in life and you will decrease the power of those who are still in the chain.

Remember what I always say: Change the world around you by changing the world within you.

It will be like avoid your greatest food temptation. Maybe it’s a the perfect piece of chocolate or a beautiful basket of fried onion rings (I’m more of a crunchy salty person when it comes to temptation).

The less you taste of it, the less your craving for it becomes. The more you see the benefits of avoiding it, the greater your ability to resist it.

Call to Action

Start this with baby steps, as I always say.

Today, when you are tempted to even THINK judgementally towards someone, don’t do it.

Call yourself out and say, even out loud, if you can “I don’t know that persons situation. I don’t know what brought them here. I know they have strengths where I have weaknesses. I will allow them to be them."

Something along those lines to remind yourself, you may be able to jump over them (or judge them) in this area, but further down the chain, in another area, they’re going to be able to jump over you.

Just one time... and then remember it. Tomorrow try to do it two times you’re tempted. Or even today.

Just work at it, consciously avoiding the opportunity to jump into The Judgement Circle.

Oh, yes, you’re right... I mess this up more times than I care to think. But, I consciously work to avoid the circle. That’s what I’m hoping you’ll do as well.

We’re all in this together, all “failures” in some area of life, working towards success in others. Continuously improving and celebrating together.