HOW TO CONDITION WEALTHNESS INTO EVERY FACET OF YOUR LIFE WITH THE RUSSIAN DOG EXPERIMENT
Today’s the perfect day to write this article.
It’s Monday morning and it’s been for raining for weeks. I didn’t get out on my mountain bike and instead spent hours in the man cave grinding rust off the old car I’m restoring. The All Blacks got beaten by the Wallabies and my favorite president of all time Donald Trump lost the election. (OK I made that last bit up).
Earlier last week Wifey took a fall, head first into the road thanks to the dog that got under her feet. She didn’t fancy ‘seeing the vicar’ this Sunday morning. She said she didn’t feel very sexy due to the broken nose and stitches in her face. It didn’t go down too well either when I casually mentioned that ‘I have needs’…
I got up in the night for a piss to find that someone had obviously moved the shower as I stubbed my toe on the tray. I should have taken some time out to cut my nails whilst putting a plaster on the small wound because one got caught in the sock as I pulled it on this morning causing more pain to the next piggy along.
So now it’s Monday morning, the one the Boomtown Rats ‘don’t like’. I rolled out of bed feeling a few pounds heavier both physically and mentally. It’s Sunday evening in the rest of the world so I can’t get on with the things I need to get on with.
I went to make my tea and the water is brown due to the rain at which point my teenage daughter walked into the kitchen having a teenage moment because mom has binned her ‘art project’. Mom had actually binned a tissue that had been left in the middle of the dining room table, which it turns out contained a dead butterfly she was drawing … who knew ay!
My son just called to say his windows had stopped working in his new car and just to top it off wifey beat me to the shower which had miraculously returned to its original place in the bathroom.
I’ve been buzzing about this article for weeks now. Up and down, scribbling ideas, waking in the night as the swirling thoughts and process took shape. Most days I wake abuzz. I’d like to say I’m one of those success gurus for whom every day is a Guns n Roses day, but today, on this dull Monday morning, I’m just not feeling it.
I’m struggling to get going, the words are glued resolutely to the keyboard and I’m staring into space. … and this is perfect because this is why I believe this article needs to be written now.
Life, the real world, it can be a bitch. We know we should be ticking our jobs off the list, powering our way towards our Big Audacious Goals, reveling in the joy of life, but for me, for a million others and possibly for you, today is not one of those days.
Today is a day sparely sprinkled with a hint of indulgent self-pity, today is a day floating on a thin film of apathy and tension.
I know this is not the best way to begin the week, after all, I have an empire to build so before writing this I set out on my usual routine. I clear the decks and focus on what needs to be done, set my goals and envisage my visions.
When I look back I realize that many weeks have begun like this one. Clarity of vision, one hundred and ten percent commitment, things to do, people to see, money to be made and just not feelin’ it!
However, today is different. I know I’m not ‘feelin’ it’, yet I’m buoyed by the knowledge that today, I’ve finally realized what a thoroughly self-destructive game I’ve been playing. Today, I’m writing this article and in doing so will put right the things then need putting right.
WHAT’S THE SECRET?
I’d like to think I’m fairly well versed in the art of success, hell I’ve been researching it for twenty years and written hundreds of thousands of words on the subject. I never rest, I’m constantly looking refine my knowledge. I was browsing Netflix recently when I noticed they’re showing The Secret. Although I’ve watched this movie a few times in the past, I hit the play button and settled down to watch it again.
I was amazed to find that the book has sold 30 million copies worldwide. To be brutally honest, The Secret isn’t that much of a secret!
The Secret is a reworking of a phenomenon known as The Law of Attraction. It’s an philosophy developed by the New Thought movement, which grew out of the teachings of Phineas Quimby in the early 19th century.
Now don’t get me wrong, reworking older ideas is fantastic business practice and I think 30m copies sold will attest to that. I have an in-depth article on the subject How to rework copyright expired work
The basic premise of The Law of Attraction, latterly reworked as The Secret, is that through positive and negative thought we vibrate on specific frequencies. Like attracts like, therefore a positive frequency will attract positive things: ‘ask the Universe, you shall receive’.
Manifestation – See clearly the pictures and somehow, some unexpected way, the vision will become a reality. Now i get it! Essentially, it’s a goal setting exercise. If you think it, then your actions become aligned and you move towards the end game. What is noticeably absent in this highly successful, repackaged philosophy is the bit in the middle, the important bit about all the hard work, the battles, the curve-balls and the crushing disappointments the real-world throws out.
Thinking the thoughts, that’s the way, that’s The Secret, that’s the doctrine repeated over and over in a multitude of ways by highly respected gurus.
“Ask the Universe, you shall receive”.
Just ask!
“The Law of Attraction is like electricity, you can’t see it, you can’t explain it, you don’t even have to understand it. Just know that when you flick the switch, the kettle boils.”
In the meantime, in the real-world: Electricity, when not wired correctly and earthed is a killer … and so it is with manifestation and visualization. If it’s not wired properly and grounded, all your hopes and dreams get fried!
So let’s explore this for a minute. I do subscribe to this mindset. ‘Just Ask!’
Yes, I’ve asked the questions: Who or what is listening, and secondly, why should the universe give a monkey’s fart about me? Yet through visualization I ask daily for a multitude of things. I do this because I know of no better way to focus and it’s better than leaving it to chance.
As for manifestation, I own or have achieved many of the things that began life sketched on the back of my eyelids. All said and done, I’m in a pretty good place. However, not one goal was cut short by manifestation, not once did I open the front door to find a bag of cash, I’ve never won the lottery, the house didn’t build itself and although the washing does magically manifest itself folded and ironed into the wardrobe, I’m sure the wife would have her own thoughts on that.
That car I mentioned earlier, the one I spent this weekend bringing back to life. The one that I’ve been fettling for months now, the one that still requires several thousands of hours more until she lives … well I have a well worn ‘vision’ for that!
That car is an old Porsche I stripped down some fifteen years ago. Every night I would go to bed and ‘envision’ the beast, all shiny and new as according to the ‘Law of Attraction’ it would be done.
It wasn’t!
Each time I entered my garage, there she sat in the same sorry state she was in when I first broke her down.
So no! This isn’t that!
It wasn’t until I got down and dirty, spent hundreds of hours grinding and polishing, sanding and cleaning, painting and building, did my old Porsche finally breath new life.
I have the pictures in my mind – I live, eat, sleep and breath the damn pictures. I go further still, surrounding myself with positivity, motivation and self-help.
I am focused on success to the point of obsession. I often run round the office with a burning bunch of sage: “be gone negativity, be gone”. I have a Norse Tree of Life talisman sat on the computer. Each day I put it on my forehead and ‘ask’ for a bigger life. I have a Chinese wealth talisman tied to the power cable so only wealth electricity can flow. I have a Buddha in the hall that smiles a bigger smile each time I rub his tummy. Ganesh, traditionally worshiped before any major enterprise and is the patron of intellectuals, bankers, scribes, and authors sits on my bookshelf, I have developed a Millionaire Mentality and practice Soul Song, I am addicted to success … yet something’s amiss!
Mixed messages, some would say. I don’t think so. There’s a hole, a void, something is defiantly awry.
ALWAYS CHOOSE THE BLUEBERRYS
We all have things that affect us profoundly, a passing comment by a stranger that either defines us or confines us our entire life.
I’ve read a million, million words and few have affected me more than the four Regan Hilyer spoke in video I recently watched.
“ALWAYS CHOOSE THE BLUEBERRYS”
She was reciting the time during her pre-success days when she was in the supermarket as an architectural student. She’d decided that being an architect wasn’t for her and had decided to ‘become a millionaire’.
She loves blueberrys but they ain’t cheap. Having pondered for a while on the $10 she had in her purse she went to grab a punnet of strawberrys because they were $4 cheaper. She doesn’t even like strawberrys! At this point she stopped and asked herself, “what would a millionaire choose?”
More importantly, exponentially more importantly, “WHAT WOULD A MILLIONAIRE FEEL?”
She resolved that to be a millionaire, she needed to feel like a millionaire.
SHE CHOSE THE BLUEBERRYS and fed off that moment, that feeling for the rest of her life.
And that, that right there is the square block that slides effortlessly into the square hole!
“You need to feel it”
I realized that for all these years, the New Thought practitioners, the soothsayers, the teachers, the masters, they were all were either missing the point or I hadn’t been listening properly (most probably the latter!)
It’s the little things that hold us back. For me, on a conscious level, I’m doing all the right things, the big things … YET, it’s the small actions I take that’s causing the smoke.
Let’s take the project at the core of my business, GAUK Motors
It’s been undergoing a major rebuild that it proving problematic. I visualise it finished, being the very best app it can be, but because the complex aggregation software has never been developed before I often have doubts.
“Can I afford more programmers – Should I have invested so much – should I put that feature on the back burner …”
A decision presents itself and I can find myself choosing the strawberrys!
I’m doing all the right things, I have a clear vision, a big picture, a head full of promises. So much passion and drive that I’ve never even noticed the tiniest of little things until it was pointed out, the chasm of difference between feeling blueberrys compared to strawberrys
And this is why today, this dull and grey Monday morning is ideal to write this; today “I’m just not feelin’ it!”
IVAN PAVLOV AND THE CONDITIONING REFLEX (THE RUSSIAN DOG EXPERIMENT)
Classical conditioning (also known as Pavlovian or respondent conditioning) refers to a learning procedure in which a biologically potent stimulus (e.g. food) is paired with a previously neutral stimulus (e.g. a bell). It also refers to the learning process that results from this pairing, through which the neutral stimulus comes to elicit a response (e.g. salivation) that is usually similar to the one elicited by the potent stimulus. It was first studied by Ivan Pavlov in 1897.
Wikipedia
Pavlov proved his theory on his dogs. At feeding time he would ring a bell. As time went by the dogs learned to associate the bell with their food until a time came when the dogs would react by salivating at the sound of the bell. A genuine, physical reaction could be elicited from an external input.
This got me thinking … again!
The disparity between thinking and feeling; it’s confused! Through visualization and goal setting we think we’re feeling but we’re not. We’re creating pictures. Pictures sit in our head, the car, the house, the good and honorable things we’re going to do in this world.
This is conscious thought and the pictures; well the pictures just aren’t deep enough.
Yesterday, I was lay in bed looking at the pouring rain feeling rejected because wifey didn’t want to service me due to her smashed in face. I broke the ice and said to wifey look at the rain – she said “that it was atrocious” – It sure was a rainy day. And some would say miserable.
When wifey said that It made me ‘feel’ a couple of notches less happy than when I’d woke.
I wanted to turn the ‘feeling’ back up so cleared my head, looked at the rain, the wondrous, life giving rain and focused only on the feeling. It worked, I ‘felt’ so much better. It was at this moment I truly clarified the distinction between thinking and feeling.
Now this may sound simple enough but it’s actually not. Thoughts are a head thing – feelings are a soul thing and it’s so easy to get confused, I’ve been confusing this all my life. Thoughts generate pictures, visualizations that in-turn generate far more primal ‘feelings’. And it is here, in this place , this deep-seated vacuum, wholly devoid of conscious thought where feelings vibrate and manifest the visions.
The brain in remarkable, more powerful than we can even imagine.
Take the Placebo. A recent study by Michael Mosley, author of the 5+2 Fasting Diet took 100 people with back pain. Some so chronic they were taking morphine or confined to a wheel chair. The participants were invited to appear on the show by the BBC on the premise that they were taking part in an experiment where half were given a ‘wonder drug’ and the others a placebo, a tablet containing nothing more than ground rice.
In fact they were all given the placebo. The results were astounding with 45% reporting an improvement, one could stand from his wheelchair and another gave up the morphine altogether. Even when they were told they’d taken a placebo, they continued to take the rice filled pill and pain stayed away.
This is the power we all posses. Belief, all-consuming belief … it’s a feeling. Many will recognize it as faith in a god, others the rush of adrenaline, others love.
When we’re thinking it, but not feeling it, we’re not truly aligned. There’s conflict and the note at which we should be vibrating is off an octave or two. It’s crazy to think that we can be thinking it but feeling the polar opposite.
It’s also crazy to think that much of ‘established’ thinking could be wrong. Now I’m no expert and at this point must issue a disclaimer for any mistakes, omissions or out and out fuck ups! What I’m sharing here are my own thoughts and opinions!
There’s a long practiced support mechanism taught by those who know about this stuff described as aversion therapy – I have no idea why it’s called that because I’m convinced this should be called Attraction of the Thing You Don’t Want to Attract Therapy.
We have a technique we use when out on the bikes which I think demonstrates why Aversion Therapy may not work. We never, ever look at the tree, if you look at the tree, you’ll sure as shit hit the tree.
“Place a rubber band on your wrist, and every time that you start feeling stressed, lightly snap it. The idea is that your brain will subconsciously start avoiding the stimulus to prevent the unpleasant snapping of the rubber band.”
It’s wrong!!!
It’s training the brain to condition the negative situation with pain!
“you gotta feel it”
So how do you feel good, when you just aint felling it? Like me today!
How do we ‘summon up’ the good feeling when we’re anxious, stressed, or downright scared of the future. How do we ‘feel’ like a millionaire, awesome, invincible, unstoppable?
With so many mixed messages how do align, how do we guarantee the feeling is the right feeling?
When bad news falls on the doorstep and the temples secrete dread, when blood becomes lead and the body strains to carry the weight. How do we resolve that. How do we condition the soul to respond and maintain the all-powerful feeling that we should feel?
I think I have the answer, I think I have a plan, a cunning plan and it’s the reason my feelings are rising into the good zone now, the flow zone
I believe we can condition our feelings through outside stimulus, in fact I think it’s imperative that, like taming electricity, we use a grounding mechanism. Left to our own devices in response to a stressful situation we’re not really in control of the survival mechanisms threaded throughout or very cells through thousands of years of evolution. We’re by our very nature reactive and disorganized with a million thoughts and a billion outcomes.
WEALTHNESS THERAPY
So what’s all this got to do with Russians and their dogs?
By using the conditioning reflex developed by Pavlov we can align conscious thoughts with primeval feelings by using an outside influence. I call it Wealthness Therapy.
Whilst formulating this I’ve looked to Reflexology for help.
I’ve a few tattoos and a rather large one on my back. Getting a tattoo bloody hurts, especially when they draw across a bone or in my case the spine. There’s a pressure point in the hand called the Hoku or Union In The Valley that’s supposed to reduce stress and pain. I must admit that it gave welcome relief during the eight hours of inking. The theory behind the pain relieving effect is unproven.
Is there real stimulus or does the pain diminish due to the power of the placebo?
Who knows!
The key for me is that it’s a very real, tangible outside stimulus, a grounding mechanism we can associate with – The Feeling. We could probably use any outside mechanism. I chose the pressure point because it’s easy to stimulate and I think I’d look a bit stupid ringing a bell each time a felt a grin.
THE WEALTHNESS BUTTON OR SUCCESS PLACEBO
A learning procedure in which a biologically potent stimulus (e.g. SUCCESS) is paired with a previously neutral stimulus (e.g. a THE WEALTHNESS BUTTON)
Bringing this all together I propose that every time we feel, The Feeling we activate the Wealthness Button. Wherever we are, whatever triggers it, recognize the joy, the lack of fear, the moment of triumph and press the button for a minute.
Every time we do this we’re conditioning muscle memory. This is Attraction Therapy and the more we train, the easier and more effortlessly the feeling flows.
Let’s think of The Wealthness Button as a placebo; a Success Placebo, an inert drug that through inexplicable, unswerving belief unleashes the untapped, unlimited power in our minds. It’s a wonder drug that helps us slide into the flow zone, that place of fabulous, thoughtless automation.
The Wealthness Zone is commonly known as plain, old The Zone. Ask any elite practitioner of their chosen sport or profession and they’ll tell you, The Zone is where they strive to be. We’re all familiar with it. Often when driving we go into a daydream state and begin to focus on the mundane task we’ve got lined up: Will tonight’s indulgence be Sauvignon Blanc or Pinot Noir, will the stranger we’re about to meet whose profile pic we swiped right on, live up to the profile pic, or is it true that if we rob the bank wearing a clown’s nose, will people only remember the nose?
After several minutes we snap out of it only to find we’ve driven miles without paying any attention, but made the journey perfectly. When we’re ‘in the zone’ our auto-actions are faultless. This is deeper consciousness taking over and it’s an expert at the job it’s assigned to.
The subconscious is an all encompassing term for the 90% of our brain power we know very little about; our inner universe. I for one have not the faintest idea of how it all works, hell! I struggle to wire a plug!
I picture a Bladerunner city from the future. Shining serenely as some immeasurable mirror beneath the smiling face of heaven, the solitary ocean lays in unrippled silence. Here, in almost perfect security from molestation by man vast skyscrapers tower above the sea of eternal nothingness, highlighted only by neon. Thoughts, appear as electric sprites traveling at hyper speed via Maglev trains from skyscraper to skyscraper. Each skyscraper is a maze of featureless corridors lined by featureless doors. Each door with a little brass plaque, the only clue as to what lies within. Each office connected via a web of stainless that would see Arachne brim with pride. Sub-thoughts skillfully navigate this web, sprinting from office to office, somehow always managing to find the most efficient route. Each office is lined with copper filing cabinets, some polished bright with the passing of use, others verdigris, all stuffed with a billion years of evolutionary knowledge.
The Wealthness Button is a physical mechanism designed to train an area of the subconscious to take over whilst we work out the less important, day to day trials and tribulations. Eventually, it will become so adept at running the show from its dedicated office in the particular task of success, that it will be rewarded with it’s own brass plaque which reads The Wealthness Zone Office.
Now on a day such as today, a Monday morning when I’m feeling low, now is the time to use The Wealthness Button.
WE MUST RESIST.
We must ensure the wiring is wired according to manufacturers specifications or here is where all the work can be undone, this is where the bike rider is in danger of hitting the tree.
The first step is to recognize when we’re not feelin’ it; when the mood needs to be lifted, the fear banished or the anxiety quelled.
THEN STOP!
That’s STOP in bold, capital letters.
Logic and temptation would suppose that now is the time to hit The Wealthness Button and summon up the go-go juice. You couldn’t do anything more wrong at this point. As with the issue I pointed out in Aversion Therapy, hitting the button now will condition the very thing you are trying to avoid.
So STOP.
Take a few moments out. don’t try to clear your head of the thing you’re trying to avoid because, it’s a tree you’ll hit at speed. And besides, it’s almost impossible to clear the head and think of nothing. Instead think of something that brought on the feeling you want, let the thing you’re trying to avoid fade away and be REPLACED by the thing you want. Develop that picture for a minute, see its vividness, live it, feel it … then and only then, pour petrol on that fire, squirt nitros into the engine, press that Wealthness Button and fly.
And the most astonishing thing is that it only takes a few seconds; a few seconds a day that can change your world.
Whilst writing this I took a break for a haircut. On the way I passed a pair of Paradise ducks with chicks, I felt the warmth of joy rise up and immediately recognized it. That’s the feeling, that’s Wealthness. I pressed The Wealthness Button searing that feeling into my muscle memory.
To condition it further I added a word, it can be any word but it helps focus the thoughts in our head on the feeling in the soul. I concentrate on the light pressure generated by the right thumb on the skin of my left hand, the heat penetrates and deepens into the muscle beneath. This morning I was positively buzzing and I could literally feel it pulsing through my core. The thumb on The Wealthness Button completing a circuit. I could see the electrons flowing in a golden wiring loom, more importantly I could feel it.
I repeat the word “Wealthness“.
As I said you can use any word you want … but be careful. I use Wealthness because it’s not in common use, therefore you don’t immediately associate it with anything. Being new to the vocabulary it’s easy to condition it with the glorious feeling.
Let’s say we use the words ‘success’ or ‘money’ or ‘winner, winner chicken dinner’. We’ve already conditioned those words. They may and most probably will have bad feelings associated with them.
Once we start to use the word ‘money’, we’re back up in that head space; that thought process. We have a million pictures already associated and therefore feelings are pre-conditioned. We’ve conceived The Feeling in our souls, we immediately recognise it. We press The Wealthness Button and say or think the word ‘money’. Suddenly, the mind curtains draw back, the screen flickers with light and all the ‘money’ experiences, good and bad form in cinematic, HD Technicolor with Dolby, digital surround sound.
Now you’re in head space and confusing the soul.
Does that make sense?
A million things can cause The Feeling, the key is to recognize it and condition it. Another day I may have seen the ducks and ‘thought‘ how beautiful. This is not the same thing, I had to ‘feel‘ the beauty. Then and only then do I ‘condition’ The Wealthness Button
Imagine those bills are cheques. Once banked, feel the feeling of freedom, that squirt of dopamine as you tell the narcissistic manager to take a hike, know that once bills are replaced by cheques, that nothing can stand in your way. THEN and only then, hit The Wealthness Button.
When ordering the cheapest thing on the menu imagine how the lobster would taste. THEN and only then, hit The Wealthness Button and bloody well order the lobster. And if you’re whining and saying ‘I don’t like lobster’, just order what you want 🙂
See the project finished, not in its current state of chaos. THEN and only then, hit The Wealthness Button.
Replace the hateful, painful experiences of that abusive partner with a joyous mindscape, exploring the relationship you want, filled with laughter and tears of happiness. THEN and only then, hit The Wealthness Button.
Push the pain you feel in your back to the back of your mind and drown it out with a full HD movie of the kids or grand children whooping and hollering as you chase them round the park (make sure they’re your kids!). THEN and only then, hit The Wealthness Button.
Wealthness Therapy is enrichment in all facets of your life – it is a feeling, that of a luxury chocolate moose, some may call it the warmth of their god, others the love of close family and friends, others the sense of achievement.
However you define it may Wealthness Therapy help bring you all that you desire and remember, always choose the blueberrys.
