You Makes Your Choice

Back in 2014 I rediscovered Bob Proctor. I say rediscovered, truth is I had paid him only scant attention until then. Now if you don’t know who Bob Proctor is he is probably the world’s foremost Prosperity teacher and speaker. You really have to watch his videos on YouTube, the guy is amazing and he’s been teaching this stuff since the 1960s so he knows his onions.

His main teaching is how our thoughts can make or break us. He talks about how we can replace the Paradigms, or ingrained habits, which hold us back and stop us from achieving greatness, with new ones.

Scientists, and those who study such things, say that the first six years of our lives are the most formative, hence they call them, unsurprisingly, the Formative Years. They have discovered that up until the age of six we accept anything we’re told as truth and without question. We soak up information, whether correct or incorrect, like a sponge. It’s only after the age of six that we start to question whether something is true or not, wrong or right. That’s why we should always be careful about what we say and do around very young children.

In fact, I would go so far as to say we should be careful, especially vocally, what we say or how react when around our unborn children for it has been noted that babies developing in the womb react to sound in a positive or negative way. 

Scientists who study child behaviour say that by the way a child reacts to situations after their first six years tends to determine not only the kind of person they are likely to develop into, but also what kind of job they’ll have and whether or not they’ll lead successful lives. Spooky stuff, right?

Obviously other factors, such as the environment we grow up in, the peer groups we associate with and personal experiences all add to the mix and add to our development and way of thinking.

All this will determine the choices we make in life and that is Bob Proctor’s point – it’s all about personal choice. No matter what situation we find ourselves in, no matter what kind of life we lead, no matter whether we are rich or poor, sick or healthy, somewhere along the line we all made personal conscious or subconscious choices leading to courses of action which culminate in the lives we now lead. Don’t get it? Let me explain it a little more.

Bob’s ‘Bible’ is the book “Think and Grow Rich” by Napoleon Hill and is the basis for all his teaching and one which I have read and listened to several times over the years along with many other books and audios along similar lines. I have also attended related workshops, seminars, webinars and what have you and yet I was still more or less back to where I started – not stinking rich but filthy poor, and not just in a material sense. I couldn’t understand it, why was I not making any real progress? Why wasn’t I living the abundant lifestyle I’d set out to achieve? It was beyond me.

I’m sure I’m not alone, I’m not the only frustrated positive thinking self-helper in this world. In fact, I’ll bet many, if not most, of you reading this book are asking the self-same questions. You’ve had the same or similar experiences as I’ve had over the years. Am I right?

As I’ve mentioned before, I’ve always been fascinated by the power of the mind, I wanted to know how it worked, how people could even heal themselves just by apparently thinking about it. I wanted to have that ‘power’ and use it to heal the world so we could all live in true peace and security and in harmony with each other. Whereas that may sound a bit idealistic, Pollyanna-ish and even naïve, it’s still at the root of why I want to help others to become so much more than they currently are.

As a result, from a very early age, I began to study people, became a People Watcher. I read books on psychology and anthropology and various philosophical works. I studied the Bible several times over the course of a 15-year period with Jehovah’s Witnesses, also delved into other religions and rounded all that off with some seriously deep thinking.

The conclusion? It is exactly as the wise King Solomon once wrote – “There is no new thing under the sun… for all is vanity.” I could no more straighten a crooked path or create something new than he could do even with all his great knowledge and wisdom. But, I have learned that we are not only individuals who occasionally do similar things, react in a similar way, we are also the makers of our own beds and each one of us is unique in the way we lie in them, in the choices we make. Let’s review an example of that in action.

  Let’s say you go into work and on the staff notice board is notice of an internal vacancy for a managerial position. You decide to apply because you believe you have the right skill sets needed for the job and your knowledge of the company’s operating procedures is high. You’ve proved you’re a hard worker, a top performer, and you get on well with your colleagues and management. All-in-all you believe you fulfil the criteria the post requires.

Your application is accepted and you sail through the initial interviews and are short-listed. In fact, the senior management have even hinted that you are the favourite during the final interview stages. You’re feeling well chuffed, you reckon it’s in the bag, just a matter of formality before you’re offered the post, even your colleagues are starting to congratulate you and you even start planning what you will do with the extra money the post will bring. What could possibly go wrong?

King Solomon also wrote about Pride before a Fall because what happens next could be described as your Brexit moment, something totally unexpected. For no apparent reason you have a blow up with a colleague, an absolute Ding Dong that almost comes to blows and during which you both let loose some disparaging remarks which are deemed offensive. You both end up on a disciplinary and end up with blots on your copy books. Further, you know you can kiss goodbye to that managerial post which was at your fingertips.

Why did that happen? Why did (the hypothetical) you sabotage your own efforts when victory was so close? This is what I term as The Crab Mentality. Remember those crabs in a bucket I talked about earlier? This is the personal version. It’s not just those around us who can pull us back, even cut off our pincers, but we can subconsciously do it to ourselves too.

Let’s go back to your blow up. It’s irrelevant how it started or who was the first antagonist. What is relevant is how you reacted, how you CHOSE to react at that particular time. Upon reflection you know you could have, and should have, handled the situation differently either by ignoring the provocation or biting your tongue to prevent you from being the provocateur. However, you chose to take a course of action which led to you and your colleague being disciplined and you losing the promotion you wanted.

It’s then you realise that something like this happens every time you try to move forward in life, every time you try to escape the bucket, you feel you are pulled back in some way. You think Life’s unfair, not treating you right, and it’s always somebody (or something) else’s fault. You’re then disgruntled, another choice, and it affects your performance and you get put on a Performance Review and, before you know it, you’ve left that company for pastures new. 

Does any of that have a familiar feel to it? It does to me because I was that hypothetical guy. Oh yes, my inner crab well and truly severed my pincers on that occasion! I had more or less got the post, was actually working in the role on a three-month probationary period when I had a fall out with my shift manager, just before my final interview. Needless to say that interview didn’t turn out so well.

And the cause of the blow out? Shift performance figures. I’d made a mistake in my hourly calculations and I went all defensive and let it get to me, blaming others for my lack of understanding. All I had to do was admit I didn’t have a clue, but I came from a point of weakness and tried to wing it instead, made a hash of it and a fool of myself. My anger was directed more at me than at my shift manager, although he played his part too.

I know I’m not the only one who has ruined their career chances in such a way. The news is full of celebrities, politicians and other note-worthies who have done something really stupid which has ended their career just as they were ‘getting famous’ or starting a new important or high profile role. President Bill Clinton and Monica, Boris Becker and the broom cupboard, George Michael and shop windows and a whole host more.

With all of us in that situation somewhere deep within our subconscious an event happened which was to have this seemingly everlasting effect and which is there solely to prevent us from being the success we consciously want, acting from a misguided form of protection.

The subconscious, remember, doesn’t know truth from untruth, fact from fiction, wrong from right. Like a computer it reacts upon the information given at any particular time and if that information says it has to take a certain form of action when a certain situation crops up, that’s exactly and dutifully what it will do. The irony is, we probably programmed it ourselves based on what we learned in those formative years or through personal experience in our peer groups and environment.

The question is, can anything be done to rectify this and the answer is yes. That’s the whole point of Bob Proctor’s teaching, to enable us to change those unwanted paradigms, replace them with more fortuitous ones, reprogram our subconscious minds. Then we can start enjoying the real life we were meant to have, the one the Good Books all talk about.