Posts made in March, 2009

Feel Like You’re Out Of Time? You Are :)

Posted by Jason Fonceca on Mar 15, 2009 in Abundance, Confidence, Conscious Creation, Life Coaching, Personal Growth, Self-Improvement, Success, Success-Consciousness, Thought-Management, Value | 3 comments

Time is such an interesting thing. City-dwellers are often obsessed with it, but completely unable to use it to maximum potential. Successful people bend time to their will. Mother Teresa, Gandhi, Lady Gaga, and Bruce Lee all had the same amount of moments of you and I, some of them had even less. but they made bold moves, never compromised, and always followed their feelings… and somehow all their meetings, connections, performances, etc. worked out for them pretty well.

I’d love for you to access these same ideas and habits.

An Eye-Opening Experiment On Genius & Timing

A couple years ago, an experiment was run to see if a brilliant, genius-level violinist would be recognized in a washington DC subway as a busker. Here’s the summary:

A man sat at a metro station in Washington DC and started to play the violin; it was a cold January morning.He played six Bach pieces for about 45 minutes. During that time, since it was rush hour, it was calculated that thousands of people went through the station, most of them on their way to work.

 

Three minutes went by and a middle aged man noticed there was a musician playing. He slowed his pace and stopped for a few seconds and then hurried up to meet his schedule.

A minute later, the violinist received his first dollar tip: a woman threw the money in the till without stopping and continued to walk.

 

A few minutes later, someone leaned against the wall to listen to him, but the man looked at his watch and started to walk again. Clearly late for work.

 

The one who paid the most attention… was actually a 3 year old boy. His mother tagged him along hurriedly, but the child stopped to look at the violinist. Finally the mother pushed hard and the child continued to walk, turning his head all the time. This action was repeated by several other children. All the parents, without exception, forced them to move on.

 

In the 45 minutes the musician played, only 6 people stopped and stayed for a while. About 20 gave him money but continued to walk their normal pace.

 

He collected $37.

 

When he finished playing and silence took over, no one really noticed it.
No one applauded, nor was there any recognition.

 

No one knew this but the violinist was Joshua Bell, one of the best musicians in the world. He played one of the most intricate pieces ever written with a violin worth 3.5 million dollars.

 

Two days before his playing in the subway, Joshua Bell sold out at a theater in Boston and the seats average $100.

 

Joshua Bell playing incognito in the metro station was organized by the Washington Post as part of a social experiment about perception, taste and the priorities of people. The outlines were: in a commonplace environment at an inappropriate hour: Do we perceive beauty? Do we stop to appreciate it? Do we recognize the talent in an unexpected context?

 

- Summary taken from: Ego Dialogues

My personal experiences.

Throughout my life I’ve given 5s, 10s, and 20s to street musicians as I pass by for any number of reasons. All of them related to success-consciousness and listening to my heart. I know what it’s like to support the arts and people looking to succeed through their passion.

I also know what it’s like to be ignored. I’ve shared my art with the world and had it fall on ‘deaf ears’, many times. I made every mistake you can name, and those experiences elevated me to some of the most valuable mindsets I can imagine.

I can tell you a few explanations as to what went wrong in the genius violin subway experiment. For now though, let`s look at what some others thought about it.

So What Happened?

The publishing of this experiment generated lots of buzz, the buzz of a quadrillion bees! Well, maybe not that much buzz, but basically, the media was talking. Check it out:

"If God started preaching at a subway station how many people would stop and listen and how many would think he’s just another nut?"

 

"Reporter Astonished By Common Knowledge: Yes, people on their way to work are generally in a hurry."

 

"This episode illustrates a key difference between DC and New York. I suspect the outcome would have been very different in Manhattan."

 

"Most people probably can’t tell the difference between the best professional violinist and the median professional violinist unless, maybe, they stopped to listen carefully."

 

" Music, after all, ‘moves only in time.’ Most people passing by that station that morning had no time." (emphasis added)

As I said, the genius violinist failed because 1) mistargeted fanbase, 2) wrong medium. For now though, I’d like to focus on the bold line above about "having no time.". There is so much incredible beauty going on around us all the time, and in big city subways, at rush hour, most of the population are pre-occupied with worry, stress, deadlines, minutes, seconds. They are in a trance, and they are in a rush.

If I had a dime for every time someone told me they couldn`t do what they wanted `cause they had no time… I`d have a lot of dimes. They say they can’t create the art or music they love. They say that they have no time to exercise or cook wonderful meals. They say they can’t stop to appreciate a musician in a subway doing their best to touch someone’s heart.

I get it. No time.

When I was younger I used to tell people "Hey, I’d love to stop and talk to <so-and-so> but I’ve got places to be and things to do."

This wasn’t 100% true.

I had plans, sure, but telling people that I had no choice and that I couldn’t change focus for a minute towards another human being showed my fear and lack of trust that time would work out for me.

With this attitude, I was sending the message that I didn’t trust the people in my circles (clients, friends, family, etc.) to understand if I showed up 1 subway late because I chose to connect with someone. My attitude said that I didn’t trust things to work out in my favour when I took a small ‘risk’. Stopping to chat might’ve resulted in an amazing business contact in the music industry, or a new and valuable friend, or an introduction to his beautiful and loving daughter. ANYTHING. All I had to do was take a couple minutes out of my plan and my trip.

Crazy, I know.

Try New Time On For Size

I’m not suggesting everyone stop what they’re doing all the time to talk to subway musicians.

I’m suggesting people look inside themselves and see if they’ve been dismissive and rushed out of habit or out of an unexamined fear. I’m suggesting that rushing to create your art, and then claiming you don’t have time to share it and sell it, is a complete misunderstanding of time.

Successful attitudes towards time means doing what feels best, and expecting time to work out for you. It can you know. It really can, but like everything on this site — you have to TRY IT. Experience teaches. I have my own badass experiences and badges of honor. I learned the hard way, and I want you to try this stuff while it`s safe, before you get to where I had to go.

Take the opportunity now, learn from my stories and my experiences. Embrace a success-mindset towards time and watch life unfold beautifully for you.

An experiment to try: Pay attention to yourself in the next little while and see how often you find yourself saying "I don’t have the time", "I’d love to but I’m too busy", or simply walking in a determined rush, head-down, and closed to anything going on around you. The results may surprise you

Many people feel like they’re running out of time, and I’d love for the same people to feel completely outside of the limits of linear time, as if it were a tool they could use or not.

"Well open up your mind and see like me,
open up your plans and damn you’re free,
look into your heart and you’ll find love, love, love, love" – Jason Mraz

I know you’re all reading, share your thoughts, feelings, feedback and stories! Ever had timing work out beautifully for you?

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Value or Val-You?

Posted by Jason Fonceca on Mar 3, 2009 in Abundance, Conscious Creation, Life Coaching, Life Purpose, Personal Growth | 4 comments

Boo!

Did I scare you?

No?

Well, that’s probably for the best, as I wasn’t trying to, I just wanted a slightly uncommon way to start my post on Value. Its fun writing ‘Value’ with a capital V. Every human being has tremendous value. Huge value. Nearly incomprehensible amounts of value… the thing is, a good portion of the world acts and behaves as if they themselves, as well as others, have very little value.

They’ll put more value on money and greed over the value of other people, scamming them and ripping them off and looking at them as just a sale or a number. Or they’ll place their life-mate’s time and wants and needs consistently above their own, as they repress themselves in a relationship. Or any other number of situations that I think we’d all choose to avoid if we were aware there were alternatives, of which there are many!

"A cynic knows the price of everything and the value of nothing." – Oscar Wilde

Price vs. Value

In most western countries, the current prevailing mindset (and if you look carefully, its changing) is that of the capitalist. "Save every dollar, scrounge every penny, cut every corner you can get away with – its the only way to get ahead of this struggle." This mindset produces exactly what it sounds like it would produce, a bunch of people fighting to get their piece of the pie, we’ll call them, the pie-cutters. I personally run in a different circle, I spend my time with people who have a different understanding of value, they are the ones who feel the world is a beautiful, abundant place, with more than enough for everyone and if we simply manage our thoughts differently, we’ll see the evidence of this, So these people are happy to give their all and go the extra-mile for themselves and others. We’ll call them the extra-milers.

Now let’s take a look at a case study together. Let us imagine that you’re looking to buy or invest in something in your life – lets say you’re tired, sore, tight, and your body could use some TLC. So you’d like a massage, for example.

So you head onto craigslist and find what looks like 2 reasonably priced massage therapists. You can choose to do business with a massage therapist from the pie-cutter camp, or from the extra-miler camp. Let’s say they’re twins — exactly equal skill, they’re both intelligent, both charge the same amount — The only difference between the two is one has the mindset of "struggling to get his piece of the pie," and the other has the mindset that "the world is an abundant place and he and everyone else will be taken care of as soon as we start valuing each other."

Now, unbeknownst to you, these two twin massage therapists are both just starting up their business, they both recently invested and have rent and debt hanging over their heads, and they both could really use your business.

Our pie-cutter therapist thinks like this: "I need to spam simple craigslists ads, psychologically if I keep making people see my same ad over and over they’ll eventually crack and come to me. After that, I’ll charge them $70.00 an hour cuz that’s as little as I can afford to cover the costs of my massage equipment and rental space. I’ll also use this cheaper oil I got from a supplier in China, sure its not the greatest but I’ll just keep that a secret from the client." – I can see this therapist may attract a trickle of clients, who likely won’t be ultra-satisfied.

Our extra-miler thinks like this: "I simply love giving massages. I love being the best I can be. I love helping people and I love having people know that, so I will make an amazing craigslist ad. Then, I’ll charge them only $35..00 for their first session, and even though I’ll lose money and its scary cuz I can’t pay rent, I know that what I do is so beneficial and such good value, that people will come back to me as repeat business *and* tell all their friends. I’m glad I studied biology, anatomy and essential oils, so now I can use some hand-crafted oils made and researched specifically to have a healing massage, and I can’t wait to share this awesome info with my clients." – I could see this therapist attracting a ton of loyal, excited, clients who loves him and his work.

After a brief e-mail or chat with each of these candidates, which would you choose? I think its safe to say we’d all choose the extra-miler. If you look at most successful and fulfilled people in life, they’re extra-milers. The way they treat people, friends, clients, suppliers, employees, bosses, whoever. They hold an amazing mindset, even if things seem risky or scary, and it pays off for them a million times over.

Often when I discuss this situation with any of the pie-cutters, I end up confronted by tons of resistance and many excuses as to why changing their mindset is too scary, risky, unaffordable, etc. and often despite knowing that I’m a creative thinking person, just brimming with solutions, they’ll tell me that there *is* no other way and they can’t believe I’ve taken the risks I’ve taken, let alone for them to do it — and so they remain pie-cutters, reaping a pie-cutter’s results. When I discuss this situation with extra-milers, they invariably share their joy in life and express an intense desire for all the pie-cutters to join us in success, and for them to change their mindset and do things a different way.

Value is the essence of things which improve one’s life. Price is simply the nearly arbitrary money/time investment required of us to gain the essence of Value. When you offer something to the world, it doesn’t matter so much what price you charge (OK, it matters a bit ,) but it matters how much value you’re offering. When you are investing in something, it doesn’t really matter how much you’re paying as much as how much value this investrment will bring to you and the people around you.

So that’s a quick look at how value vs. price works in day-to-day to life, but that’s not all. Possibly more worthy of your attention, is the value you place on yourself.

Do you value You?

Have you ever known a musician who’s obvious true calling was so bright and clear to you, but they chose to work in another field where they were miserable? An artist who creates the most beautiful things, but spends most of his time in a retail store, barely making ends meet? Someone with brilliant ideas for a new career but with "no idea how to start?" This situation wherein someone brilliant and talented with large amounts of goodness to offer the world ends up settling for less out of fear, ignorance, brain-washing, abuse, lethargy, misplaced priorities, or whatever — is something most of us have been witness to.

Often people do not acknowledge their own value, nor do they realize that to truly appreciate said value, is to develop it, risk with it, devote time to it, and definitely not to squeeze it in after an unhappy or ho-hum 9-to-5 grind. Again, what occurs because of this consistent lack of perceiving our own value, is a world filled with people with huge wells of talent and true-callings and idea-people and big-thinkers who wander around our planet moving boxes and settling for being locked in cubicles. These are the same big-thinkers and talented artists who can influence large bodies of people. If Beyonce said "Hey, I support the 1% for The Planet movement, it’s one way I’m an independent woman." Then so would a good chunk of the audience at her concerts. That’s the only work she needs to do at this point. However, she did not start out with that kind of power, she developed it. She kept giving and offering and letting go of worry, as she continued her singing. She has developed her value and launched her career and now she can influences massive amounts of people. You probably know musicians who have similar value potential, but are currently taking half-assed steps towards using it.

Do you value yourself?

Its usually not too difficult to look at other people and notice that they might not be living up to their potential, and its often less apparent for us to notice our own potential (possibly because we’re often focused on everyone around us instead,) or if we do notice, sometimes we live in denial for awhile.

"It is easy to pick fault with other people. In fact, often we gain a subtle enjoyment from highlighting the faults of others. If we are truly honest, however, we will see that when we criticize other people we actually have the very same weakness ourselves. Perhaps we may not make this mistake quite as frequently or as badly, but we still share it to some extent." – Tejvan Pettinger, PickTheBrain.com

Sometimes we just hold a very limited perspective. We may have feelings of inferiority eg: ”Other people can sing, live healthy, and make money…why can’t I?” and feelings of inadequacy eg: ”I have no talents…look at so-and-so, she’s just so talented, but I can’t do anything.” and feelings of worthlessness eg: "’Nothing I do really matters, so why try?” These things aren’t true; you’d be hard-pressed to find someone in the world who had little or nothing to offer, whether obvious or hidden. Stephen Hawking, crippled in body and indirectly voiceless from Motor Neurone Disease (or Lou Gherig’s disease?) kept up with the world of quantum physics and finished an amazing literary work. Nick Vujicic (of lifewithoutlimbs.com) leads an inspiring successful happy life, despite being born limbless. Even people who at first glance may seem powerless, have great springs of talent hidden within.

"Make the most of yourself, for that is all there is of you." – Ralph Waldo Emerson

Sometimes the only way out of this mindset of low-worth, is faith. Faith in ourselves and our abilities, faith in our friends and family and support systems, or faith in angels or spirit guides or a higher power. If it helps you to use a different word than ‘faith’ which some people find to have too many religious connotations for them to appreciate, we’ll substitute the word ‘confidence.’ They are basically the same thing, regardless of what dictionaries may say. Confidence is knowing, deep-down, somehow that something is true. Confidence in oneself is having faith in one’s own abilities, confidence in one’s friends, is having faith in those friends to deliver. Confidence that "everything will work out for the best," or that one "has a special purpose here on earth," is faith in a higher power.

If we’re not focused too much on others, and we don’t have a very limited perspective, sometimes we’re just afraid. We don’t want people to think/see/say such-and-such about us, so we don’t do anything, in fear we stagnate.

"What’s holding us back? Ultimately, it’s fear. It’s almost always fear. Fear is the number one reason why people stay in their safety zones. It’s why people don’t start new businesses. It’s why people stop looking for love. But what are we afraid of?" – Susan Baroncini-Moe, Lifehack.org

If we stagnate in fear like an artist who hides all his work in his basement shying from criticism, then until it is out in the world, adorning walls or being viewed as often as possible, we’re hiding our talents and under-valuing ourselves.

Here’s a youtube video by Paul Evans on Value.

 

The case he is looking at is the case of someone who thinks they have very little skill. They have some though. They can make a simple youtube video or maybe a blog, and in his example, they don’t value this ability or use it. He has an interesting model of how people tend to look at value, and compare themselves to other people they deem as "high-value" people, it also analyzes things society tends to de-value and dismiss as not valuable. When we see the people who are executing their skills and talents as a very very high level, we can often downplay our own abilities, thinking "Hey, my skills are nowhere near as good as that guys," but there are tons of people in the world, who know nothing, and need tons of help, that the high-level guys won’t even bother with. There is nothing bad or wrong in offering to help those people who are behind you in certain skillsets, and there’s nothing wrong with learning from the people who are ahead of you in certain skillsets. Whatever the case, there is value to be demonstrated.

Valuing others

How do we value other people?

"The first step in the evolution of ethics is a sense of solidarity with other human beings." – Albert Schweitzer

Its important to love and value yourself before you do anyone else. If you feel yourself respectable and worthy of affection, people will flock to you because they will want to be around someone who loves themself and feels joyous about their own life and existence.

Its recommended to genuinely be interested in people. Make eye contact with them when they speak to you, listen to what they tell you. Listen, by focusing and clearing your mind and try to feel their feelings. Avoid keeping an inner monologue or planning what to say next or your next conversational move. Sympathize with them when they share their problems with you. Make it a priority that their words matter to you, and help them believe it.

People enjoy being with people who are fun to be around. It will be impossible for them not to be attracted to you when they see you have a good sense of humor and a positive outlook, and eventually you will attract amazing and helpful people into your life.

Act kindly towards others; an unexpected gift, will empower both you and them.

If you find yourself being upset or miserable make a point of changing how you feel. The most helpful people you can meet may easily shy away from being around miserable people.

If you can take time to work on yourself, you will automatically being valuing others. If you give yourself goals such as being extremely attentive, extra generous, super-positive, etc., then you will express those qualities to others, and naturally and habitually leave them feeling valued and appreciated.

The long and short of it…

Basically, what I’d love to encourage, is for all of you to truly value yourself and others. Value yourself, and in doing so, you will understand and be aware of value, and it will then allow you to truly value others.

And hey, if there’s anyone you feel would benefit from a little public valuing or linkage here, feel free to mention them in the comments

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