He said: “try not, do or do not”. Luke was ‘trying’ to lift his aircraft using his Jedi powers, and he failed.

If you are a NLP Practitioner, you know about the power of words.

The words ‘try’ and ‘do’ have an neurological effect to the brain and to some micro-muscles in our body that impact your performance when you do anything.

But There’s More to It Spiritually

When I “try” to make a mental action or verbal action or physical action, the mind doesn’t believe (or have confidence) that what I am about to do is going to work.

When I “do” and make mental action or verbal action or physical action, the mind isn’t concerned about belief but rather concentrates on what I am about to do in the present moment.

No belief makes you a skeptic. Skeptical about:

1. Yourself
2. Your method (or the mechanics of it)
3. The ones who gave this method

When you have skepticism, your mind can’t concentrate.

When you can’t concentrate, you can’t focus.

When you can’t focus, then you’re out of balance.

When you’re out of balance, then you can’t stand on your own two feet.

When you can’t stand on your own two feet then you fall.

The power of words is just one domain to enter into your heart and soul. The essential core of your being is to get rid of skepticism and gain concentration.

Rather than say to yourself that “I can do it”, or “I will do my best”, try to get rid of skepticism and gain full concentration of your mind in the moment. And then you can do your best at your best performance without even trying.

Skepticism is your foe, drive away from it.

Concentration is your friend, stick with it.

How? By meditation. Close your eyes right now, and stay with the moment by observe your breath for 5 minutes. Then continue to surf with the power of concentration.

‘Try’ or ‘do’ doesn’t matter now when you have the power of concentration.

Close your eyes and do it now

Editor’s Note: I’ve cleaned up some of Paiboon’s text and added a clip of the famous Yoda scene to help refresh your memory

You betcha.

It’s a tendency to kick himself in the ass for all the mistakes he’s seen himself make throughout the day.

You see, the more aware a person is, the more he’s able to notice when he flubs up.

That’s when his critical voice kicks in; ‘how could you have done that, I can’t believe you said that, you should have known better, yadda yadda yadda now no-one will ever love you and everyone in the universe will know you’re such a total loser!’

Something like that.

That’s when someone, say someone like me, has to yell (inside) ’stop!’ and remember that the only real use for my critical voice is to help me spot my mistakes so I can learn from them.

In other words, to make real the principle that ‘there are no failures, only learning experiences‘.

To say instead to my critical voice; ‘okay, I messed up. So how can I have done better? What can I do instead the next time?’

And you know what? More often then not, that critical voice will have some pretty smart suggestions. Just gotta remember to stop him from being such a crank.

P.S. The more aware a person is, the more he’s able to notice when he does a kick-ass job too

Who owns you really?

Is it email? TV? Fame? Money? Is it what you drive? What you have or don’t have? That new toy you just can’t live without? Is it your past? Someone you haven’t seen in years? Is it what people say you are? Is it what others think of you? Is it what you believe? Is it your own voice or the voices of others?

Who owns you? You or somebody else?

“My leader is obliged to hear me bitch about things at work! It is therapeutic and allows me to work better!”

Being the hard-headed fool that I am, I nodded my head in acknowledgement of her comment. Effectively attracting the spanner to fly my way. She pointed to me and declared with aplomb:

“See, even the coach here agrees with me!”

Is Bitching Therapeutic?

Yes! If therapy is defined, as a process that makes a person feels better, then bitching is therapeutic if you feel good after that.

So something happens to you, you bitch about it, you let it off your chest and everything is well and good again?

It doesn’t happen this way, does it?

Is Bitching REALLY Therapeutic?

Interestingly, if therapy is defined, as a process that makes the SITUATION better for a person to function in the environment that she is in, then we are in for a treat because we consider not only the one bitching in question. We are also taking into consideration, others and the context in which the bitching is done.

To me, bitching is synonymous with making oneself seen, heard and felt. The emotions get an outlet. It’s just a part of a therapeutic process. In therapy, there must be a resolution. In coaching, we take it a little further by demanding intiative.

What will a COACH do?

Here’s something we all can get used to using:

Step 1 – Allow bitching about it for 1 minute. However, the catch is you can ONLY do so for an alloted time of a single minute. Let all your emotions out. Then we are going to close the Bitching Box and WILL NOT come back to it again. We will move on to the next box.

Step 2 – “What happen?” Only list the facts of the event and not your judgement about persons involved. Be as detailed as possible. Take the 3rd person’s perspective. When you decide all the facts have been addressed, close the Event Box and we will not come back to it again. Move on to the next box.

Step 3 – “What must you do differently?” In order for the situation to become better or avoided, what must you do DIFFERENT? You can only focus on things that you do, not what others should do. Keep this Options Box open till you complete Step 4.

Step 4 – “What do you commit to do?” From the Options Box, find one thing that you are willing to commit to allow the changes to take place. By this time, you will notice that your focus is on creating possibilities and away from blaming others/the situation. Pick an option or a combination of a few that allows you to positively affect changes. Close the Options Box and place your choice of action and response in the Commitment Box. Declare: “I commit to…for the purpose of…so that I can reap positive benefit of doing so.”

Step 5 – Define the 1st Action Step to take. Make it SMART.

Some of you may wonder whether Step 1 is even necessary. Well, my friends, that’s entirely up to you. It’s only one freaking minute.

Spanner Woman threw me a tool that allowed me to introduce the whole toolbox to the group. Why resist her when I can utilise her beliefs?

In Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP), we learn about the Law of Prerequisite Variety: the element in any system that has the most flexibility will end up leading the system.

Think of little children, they have incredible flexibility. To get you to do something, they’ll tease, cajole, beg, lie, cry, laugh, use logic, use emotion, jump up and down, be adorable, be funny, and they’ll keep doing it until they get what they want.

Adults seem to have 2 or 3 patterns they keep coming back to

But while that belief has been useful to me, I’ve come to feel that it’s incomplete. Instead of:

The person with the most flexibility will lead the group.

I’ve come to believe that:

The person with the most flexibility and inner congruence will lead the group.

We know that the map is not the territory. When you’re alone, you’re living in your own reality. But when you’re out there with people, there are many different realities interacting all at once.

So the obvious question is; whose reality do you want to be in; theirs or yours? Because I’ve come to realize the person who has the most congruent map of the world will lead perceived reality, and the group.

Let’s say you have a shaky belief that you’re attractive to the opposite sex. You’d like to believe, and you do believe it – half of the time. The other half you’re not so sure.

You go out with a group of friends and meet some new people of the opposite sex. As the day goes on you notice that they seem to be ignoring you; alarm bells go off and the pessimist inside your head goes; ‘oh no, I guess I’m not that attractive after all!’

But what if you have a strong, inner conviction that the opposite sex finds you irresistibly delicious? So even if they do seem to be ignoring you, the voice inside your head will go in another way; ‘they haven’t had the chance to know how sexy I can be yet’.

In the first example, your shaky map of the world will be led by their maps of the world which has made them do what they do – but maybe they were just shy? In the second, your congruent map of the world will lead you to take proactive actions to steer the direction of the group in the way you want.

Together with the law of prerequisite variety, if you have the flexibility to keep changing your approaches, you’ll have even more power to lead anyone’s reality instead of being drawn into theirs.

What would you do if you were told today you had less than 3 to 6 months to live?

The reality of death, limited time and chances is a very real one we have to face every single day. We tend to forget, and bask in the glow of our comfort zones, letting each day go by and conveniently forget that one day, this too shall pass.

Jobs went through that whole day without that illusion. Later that evening, a few cells were extracted from the tumor…and it turned out to be a very rare form of pancreas cancer that could be cured with surgery.

Steve is fine now, and is giving the 2007 MacWorld Keynote in a few hours’ time.

In my Start Your New Year In The Best Direction post I decided my leading word for the year is going to be courage, and I love Steve’s quote about his experience from his Stanford University 2005 commencement address; it describes courage perfectly and I strive to live up to it:

Remembering that I’ll be dead soon is the most important tool I’ve ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life. Because almost everything — all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure – these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important.

Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart.

Watch his commencement address here: