Government_Leadership-4

=**Vision**=
 * Resolved: To Align My Conscious (Ant) With My Subconscious (Elephant) Mind Toward My Vision**

__The Ant and the Elephant__: In The Success Principles by Jack Canfield, people have control over three things - the thoughts they think, the images they visualize, and the actions they take. The conscious mind and the subconscious mind and how the work together are referred to as the ant and the elephant in this section. Your conscious mind - the ant - stimulates 2,000 neurons a second while your subconscious mind - the elephant - stimulates 4 billion neurons per second. So, the thoughts that you think are your ant. The images you visualize are your elephant. Success happens when the ant and the elephant are aligned and working towards the same objective.

Brain researchers say your unconscious outweighs your conscious 10 million to 1. This is the source of your hidden genius. We all have this smarter part - wise people - successful people - consult this smarter part. Your subconscious mind will work regardless of whether or not you want it to. The question is who is programming your subconscious. Have you ever not been able to figure something out and you go away or go to sleep and suddenly it comes to you? That's your subconscious working when you weren't aware of it. Albert Einstein said "Imagination is everything. It's the preview of life's coming attractions." He understood that imagination is more important than knowledge. This is how he created many of his discoveries. Knowledge is important, but imagination is more important. Even long before Einstein, Napoleon said imagination rules the world.

When a person assumes responsibility for what is fed to his ant and elephant, he changes his thoughts. Your mind doesn't care what you want or what you are willing to work hard for. It only cares that you perform in accordance with what you expect of yourself.

__Who is feeding your elephant?__ Your elephant will get fed. If you don't feed your elephant, someone else will glady do it for you. Very few believe they can truly accomplish what they want in life due to this civil war between the ant and the elephant. The latest research shows that people watch an average of 5 hours of TV a day. This is why advertisers pound ads repeatedly. Every single ad feeds images to your elephant. Remember, people make decisions emotionally (elephant) and then explain it rationally (ant) to themselves and others - advertisers use this to increase sells. Advertisers are willing to do the programming - companies wouldn't pay big money if it didn't work.

Think about a TV theme song that you remember even if you hadn't seen the show in years. Think of a commercial that you remember that's no longer on. For Mr. Hill, it's the Geico ring tone (ring-it-a-ding ding-e dong dong, ring-it-e dong ding ding!!!!) - Geico doesn't sell cell phones, they sell insurance! It worked! Others are programming your elephant because they have a vested interest in getting you to buy their product. How many go into college and gain that "Freshman 15?" Same number of people who have allowed their elephant to be programmed to believe that college = party time. You don't need to spend thousands, go into to debt, and go to college to do this...college is to educate yourself for a career!

Hollywood has become a great elephant programmer. Think of the shows on TV now that demean family values - ones that make the father figure a beer-drinking lazy guy instead of a role model. Think of the shows that have death as entertainment. How about the shows that show people doing drugs without harm coming to them, or the ones that talk about murdering an unborn baby like it's nothing, or ones that have changed the definitions of marriage to suit secular beliefs? Then many wonder why society's values are decline...it's the elephant being programmed as we merely think we're entertaining ourselves.

If you're not aware of your elephant being programmed, you could start doing things or believing things that aren't in your best interest. Your subconscious mind doesn't know right for wrong or have feelings...it only has what it's programmed to have. Who's programming your elephant...you or someone else? The Wallenda Factor is named after Karl Wallenda and deals with identifying what is feeding your elephant. Improper programming can end tragically. He was a world-known acrobat that walked across tight ropes at amazing heights. He was going to Puerto Rico to walk across two buildings. All he thought about for three straight months was falling and he wondered if they'd set up things the right way. This went against his normal thought process and routine. He even personally supervised the installation of the tight rope. On the day he was to do it, he fell and perished. The programming of his mind made the entire difference.

Another example of the need to control the inside conditions deals with Nick Sitzman. He was a railroad worker and at the end of his shift, he decided to do one more check around. He walked into a box car and the door shut behind him locking him inside. With his knowledge, he estimated the temperature to be 0 degrees. Nick was in an ice box car that keeps things cold. He panicked and figured he wouldn't survive till morning. He pounded on the door but everyone had gone home so no one heard him. He found a knife and etched words in the floor to let his family know what happened to him. He wrote "it's cold, if I could only go to sleep." The crew found him the next morning and he was dead. The autopsy showed every sign that Nick froze to death. However, the refrigeration unit in the car was inoperative and the temperature was on 55 degrees. Nick had killed himself by the power of his own thoughts. This story also shows how hypnosis can work - it deal with the unconscious mind - the elephant.

__Uniting the ant and the elephant__: We should be getting our ant to feed our elephant and then our ant can ride on our elephant. This is ending the civil war between the ant and the elephant. Imagine a tug-of-war between an ant and an elephant. No matter how hard the ant works, the elephant is going to win. The ant has to get on the elephant's back. This is why most don't accomplish what all they want in life. When the will and imagination are in conflict, the imagination will always win the day. When you worry about things (can I pay for this, can I accomplish that), you're programming your elephant to get the worst results. In racing, the first thing they teach is to stay focused on where you want to go and not to look at the wall - that's when crashes often happen.

A human being always acts and feels in accordance to what is believed to be true. So, what do you believe about yourself to be true? Eugene Ferguson in //Engineering and the Mind's Eye// wrote that "Pyramids, cathedrals, and rockets exist not because of geometry, theory of structures, or thermodynamics, but because they were first pictures - literal visions - in the minds of those who first conceived them."

__Success is a picture in the mind's eye__: The example of visualizing comes through the story of Peter Vidmar. He was an Olympic gymnast. If he was willing to work as hard as he could and program his elephant, he could achieve anything. At the time, the Chinese were the best. Vidmar and his partner visualized over and over that they were going to beat the Chinese. He'd say okay Tim (Tim Dagget was his partner), let's imagine that it's the Olympics and the U.S. team is up and on the last event - the high bar. The last two guys up for the U.S. are Tim Dagget and Peter Vidmar. Our team is neck and neck with the Chinese, the reigning world champions. We have to perform our routines perfectly to win. They would visualize an arena with 13,000 and 2 million watching on TV. Tim would shout "green light" and I'd look at the judge (our coach) and raise my hand and face the bar and begin my routine. They did this for years preparing and practicing. It was 1984 in the Olympic finals on the UCLA campus full of fans and millions tuning in at home. It was the last event - the high bar and Dagget and Vidmar were actually the last two. Just as they visualized the U.S. was neck and neck with China and had to perform perfectly. The coach said "Okay Peter, let's go. You know what to do. You've done it a thousand times so let's do it one more time." Instead of seeing himself in the arena, Peter pictured himself in his practice gym. When the announcer called his name, he imagined it was Tim Dagget. When the green light came on, he imagined it was Tim saying "green light." When he raised his hand, he imagined he was looking at his coach. After visualizing thousands of times being at the Olympics, he visualized this time that he was back in the gym. Vidmar did a perfect routine, the routine he did a thousand times before in the gym at home. Thirty minutes later, he and the U.S. team stood listening to the National Anthem winning the gold. It was a moment he visualized a thousand times in his gym back home.

When you want something bad enough and program your subconscious mind, you can move mountains. Most people think their dreams are impossible because they're in ant mode. What a person sees through their ant eyes aren't the same as what people looking through elephant eyes can see. Vidmar's story proves a person doesn't always get what he wants or what he deserves, but always get what he expects.

Most people fail in life, not from lack of potential, but from lack of planned, focused feeding of their elephant minds. A young actor left Canada and came to America to pursue an acting career. He was urged by his father saying he was the funniest person he'd known. This actor went to Hollywood and did his comic routines and got some laughs but was struggling and was low on money. He thought about returning to Canada, but his father urged him to keep trying and kept saying he had talent. This actor drove his Toyota up Mulholland Drive in Hollywood. As he stared down at the city, he ended the civil war and aligned his ant and elephant and wrote a check dating it Thanksgiving 1995 (the year is 1987) for $10 million for acting services rendered. This was ridiculous - this guy that can't pay rent in a beat up Toyota is writing a check for himself for $10 million for acting services rendered. By 1995, Jim Carrey was receiving $20 million for acting services rendered. When his dad died, he buried that check with his dad because his dad believed in him enough.

We need to pursue our dreams. Easy isn't a promise, but if you feed your elephant with positive information, you can act on positive programming with your ant aligned with your elephant. If you do this consistently, thousands of times repeatedly, you will have ended the civil war and will accomplish greatness at a time when greatness is definitely needed. Is your elephant charging towards dreams or towards fears? You won't fail or succeed just because of talent - your future will have a lot to do with aligning your ant and your elephant.

He is the famous TV and movie star who accomplished something that was never done before - eight consecutive movies grossing over $100 million in revenue. He certainly didn't start out looking like one destined for greatness.
 * Will Smith:**

Will Smith was born in West Philadelphia to a lower-middle class family. Growing up in a rough area, he always had a dream of doing something great. His turning point came at age 16 after his first girlfriend cheated on him and dumped him. Instead of self-pity, he felt the best revenge would be massive success to show her that she made the wrong decision. How many 16-year-olds would respond like this? He learned the value of reading to get ideas from others.

Instead of going to MIT for engineering, he partnered with D.J. Jazzy Jeff releasing his first album while still in high school. His PG rap won a Grammy. Still a teen without any financial experience, he spent freely, which led to an IRS audit that resulted in a tax lien of $2.8 million. However, Smith's elephant refused to die whereas most people would've listened to their ant. Facing the mockery of his friends and nearing bankruptcy, he parlayed his popularity into the sitcom //The Fresh Prince of Bel Air//, which became a major success and led his rise to stardom.

He went through a difficult divorce. However, he understood that it didn't matter what happened to him, but how he handled it is what mattered. Both of his setbacks - a multimillion dollar tax lien and a multimillion dollar divorce - could've knocked him out. Instead, they fueled his hunger to do and become more. It's not easy to get into movies let alone major blockbusters. He couldn't even get a meeting with a movie producer for anything. When asked if he had a plan B, he said "by contemplating a plan B, you almost create a necessity for a plan B." If a person is planning a plan B, the elephant gets confused - go after plan A or B? Many bet against Will Smith, but he never bet against himself. What happened from there is history - he became one of the most successful movie stars.

In Matthew 17:20 Jesus said "For verily I say unto you, if you have faith as a grain of mustard seed, you shall say unto this mountain, remove hence to yonder place, and it shall be removed, and nothing shall be impossible unto you."

__Thinking Questions__: 1. The ant represents our rational mind and the elephant represents our visual mind. One uses 2,000 neurons and one uses 4 billion. With that said, how do advertisers use this information to program our minds? 2. Aligning one's ant and elephant are crucial to success and even though we know it's true, why is it so difficult to do? 3. How do the five senses play a role in visualizing your purpose and/or goals? Give some examples. 4. What are some ways to use positive visualization intentionally every day? 5. Give an example of a time when you got your ant and elephant in alignment and you were "on fire" for something. 6. What will you take from this lesson and begin applying in your own life?

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