Introduction
Remove Your Last Obstacle to Ultimate Success in Wealth, Work, and Love
THE ONE PROBLEM THAT HOLDS YOU BACK
Life is at its best when love, money, and creativity are growing in harmony. (Location 69)
Chapter 1: Preparing for Your Big Leap
The One Problem and How to Solve It
HOW TO BEGIN
From my experience with a lot of people, as well as myself, over the past few decades, I think we can put our minds at ease: being willing to feel naturally good and have our lives go well is not a safety hazard. (Location 153)
If we think it’s even remotely possible to feel good all the time and have life go well all the time, we owe it to ourselves to find out how many of us can do it. (Location 158)
FOCUSING ON YOU
After all, human beings have very little experience with consciously cultivating the ability to feel more and more positive energy. (Location 205)
Many of our fears are based on the workings of the ego, the part of us that’s focused on getting recognition and protecting us from social ostracism. (Location 216)
In the Zone of Genius, your ego is unnecessary; living there is its own reward. (Location 217)
Once you make a commitment to inhabiting your full potential, your ego is suddenly faced with extinction. (Location 218)
Faced with annihilation, your ego will set off a smoke bomb of fear. It will attempt to sabotage you by telling you tall tales of the terrors you’ll experience if you take the Big Leap into your Zone of Genius. Using the smoke screen of fear as your own inner IMAX, it will project pictures of financial ruin and other disasters sure to befall you. (Location 221)
Ultimately, fear will be banished, because fear disappears when you’re fully engaged in the Zone of Genius. (Location 224)
THE WAY THROUGH
There’s only one way to get through the fog of fear, and that’s to transform it into the clarity of exhilaration. (Location 227)
One of the greatest pieces of wisdom I’ve ever heard comes from Fritz Perls, MD, the psychiatrist and founder of Gestalt therapy. He said, “Fear is excitement without the breath.” Here’s what this intriguing statement means: the very same mechanisms that produce excitement also produce fear, and any fear can be transformed into excitement by breathing fully with it. On the other hand, excitement turns into fear quickly if you hold your breath. (Location 228)
The best advice I can give you is to take big, easy breaths when you feel fear. Feel the fear instead of pretending it’s not there. Celebrate it with a big breath, just the way you’d celebrate your birthday by taking a big breath and blowing out all the candles on your cake. Do that, and your fear turns into excitement. Do it more, and your excitement turns into exhilaration. (Location 234)
The goal in life is not to attain some imaginary ideal; it is to find and fully use our own gifts. (Location 241)
HOW THE UPPER LIMIT PROBLEM WORKS
Each of us has an inner thermostat setting that determines how much love, success, and creativity we allow ourselves to enjoy. When we exceed our inner thermostat setting, we will often do something to sabotage ourselves, causing us to drop back into the old, familiar zone where we feel secure. (Location 253)
Unfortunately, our thermostat setting usually gets programmed in early childhood, before we can think for ourselves. Once programmed, our Upper Limit thermostat setting holds us back from enjoying all the love, financial abundance, and creativity that’s rightfully ours. (Location 255)
Guilt is a way our minds have of applying a painful grip on the conduit through which our good feelings flow. (Location 260)
In childhood, our Upper Limit Problem develops in acts of misguided altruism. Specifically, it develops with our attempts to take care of the feelings of others. ... Perhaps you notice that the smile disappears from your mother’s face when you outshine one of your siblings. You quickly learn to pull back a little from shining to take care of your mother’s feelings. (Location 261)
A RADICAL IDEA
When we’re feeling good, we may come up against the hidden barrier of an old belief such as “I must not feel good, because fundamentally flawed people like me don’t deserve it.” The churning froth of these two powerful forces clashing with each other is the chief constituent of the irritating, itchy, slow-drizzle feeling of guilt. (Location 268)
Your capacity expands in small increments each time you consciously let yourself enjoy the money you have, the love you feel, and the creativity you are expressing in the world. As that capacity for enjoyment expands, so does your financial abundance, the love you feel, and the creativity you express. (Location 274)
Most people think they will finally feel good when they have more money, better relationships, and more creativity. ... What a powerful moment it is, though, when we finally see that we have it the wrong way around. (Location 276)
If you focus for a moment, you can always find some place in you that feels good right now. Your task is to give the expanding positive feeling your full attention. When you do, you will find that it expands with your attention. Let yourself enjoy it as long as you possibly can. (Location 279)
Find a place in yourself where you can feel good about the money you have. Give your full attention to that place of satisfaction. ... Try it out in the area of love. Instead of focusing on loneliness or stagnation in a relationship, find a place in yourself where you can feel good about the love you have in your life. Give your full attention to that place of joy or satisfaction. Feel it expand as you give awareness to it. (Location 283)
As you get more skilled with this practice, you discover that your positive feelings, your abundance, your love and creativity all begin to expand. Then, the outer aspects of your life change to match the expanding good feeling inside you. (Location 288)
When you push through your Upper Limit thermostat setting by making more money, experiencing more love, or drawing more positive attention to yourself, you trip your Upper Limit switch. ... Unconsciously, you then do something to bring yourself back down to the thermostat setting you’re familiar with. (Location 296)
Each of us has an unconscious tendency to trip our Upper Limit switch, and each of us can eliminate that tendency. We deserve to experience wave after wave of greater love, creative energy, and financial abundance, without the compulsion to sabotage ourselves. (Location 309)
THE UPPER LIMIT THERMOSTATS OF FAMOUS AND HIGHLY SUCCESSFUL PEOPLE
People often experience big breakthroughs…and then find a way to avoid relishing their achievement. They receive an award at work and then have a screaming argument with their spouse later that same night. They get the job of their dreams and then get sick; they win the lottery, then have an accident. The newfound success trips their Upper Limit switch, and they plummet back to the familiar setting they’ve grown used to. (Location 324)
You know deep inside you that you will never be fully satisfied until you have anchored yourself in your Zone of Genius. To do less would be to hold back, and long ago you made a handshake deal with the universe that you wouldn’t do that. The seductive comforts of success, though, can lull us into accepting the status quo. In that state of comfort, it’s easy to forget the deal you made with the universe to use yourself fully. (Location 345)
SOLVING ONE PROBLEM AND FREEING YOURSELF
Solving the Upper Limit Problem is possible only by a leap of consciousness. Once you learn this way to solve problems, you’ll have a tool you can apply wherever and whenever you want to increase your success. (Location 350)
The Upper Limit Problem must be dis-solved, not solved. You dissolve it by shining a laserlike beam of awareness on its underpinnings—the false foundations that hold the Upper Limit Problem in place. When you shine the light of awareness on the underpinnings, they disappear. (Location 353)
The Zone of Incompetence
The Zone of Incompetence is made up of all the activities we’re not good at. Others can do them a lot better than we can. (Location 358)
The best way to handle most things in your Zone of Incompetence is to avoid doing them altogether. Delegate them to someone else, or find some other creative way to avoid doing them. (Location 361)
One thing I’ve learned from a lifetime of observing: being smart doesn’t keep you from doing dumb things. (Location 374)
The Zone of Competence
You’re competent at the activities in the Zone of Competence, but others can do them just as well. (Location 383)
When people are not expressing their full potential, they often get illnesses that have vague, hard-to-diagnose symptoms. Chronic fatigue syndrome and fibromyalgia are good examples of what I’m describing. I’ve seen both of those illnesses disappear when people began to break out of their sub-Genius zones and move toward fulfilling their true potential. (Location 387)
The Zone of Excellence
In the Zone of Excellence are the activities you do extremely well. You make a good living in your Zone of Excellence. For successful people, this zone is a seductive and even dangerous trap. (Location 404)
The temptation is strong to remain in the Zone of Excellence; it’s where your own addiction to comfort wants you to stay. It’s also where your family, friends, and organization want you to stay. You’re reliable there, and you provide a steady supply of all the things that family, friends, and organizations thrive on. The problem is that a deep, sacred part of you will wither and die if you stay inside your Zone of Excellence. (Location 406)
The Zone of Genius
Your Zone of Genius is the set of activities you are uniquely suited to do. They draw upon your special gifts and strengths. (Location 411)
By age forty, many of us have tuned out the Call to Genius and are getting loud, repeated alarms hidden in the form of depression, illness, injuries, and relationship conflict. These alarms are reminding us to spend more time feeding our natural genius and letting it do its magic in the world. (Location 413)
If we don’t heed the call and make a gentle, graceful move into our Zone of Genius, we often get painful life whacks that tell us with blatant clarity that we’re not paying attention to the Call. (Location 417)
Chapter 2: Making the Leap
Dismantling the Foundation of the Problem
There is something important you should know about the Upper Limit Problem: when you attain higher levels of success, you often create personal dramas in your life that cloud your world with unhappiness and prevent you from enjoying your enhanced success. (Location 440)
In short, you have a tendency to follow big leaps forward in your success with big mess-ups. These mess-ups rubber-band you back to where you were before, or sometimes some place worse. (Location 444)
Note: The path of least resistance structure
On the occasions when I said, “You’re right” in my own marriage, I noticed that Kathlyn responded as if she were hearing the sweet sounds of a Mozart concerto. (Location 487)
Note: Knowledgeable achiever; Don't always be right
TRIGGERING THE UPPER LIMIT PROBLEM
The false foundation under the Upper Limit Problem is a set of four hidden barriers based on fear and false belief. Every person I’ve worked with has uncovered at least one of the barriers, and sometimes two or three. I’ve never met anybody who had all four. (Location 509)
The Four Hidden Barriers all have something in common: although they seem true and real, they are based on beliefs about ourselves that are neither true nor real. The fact that we unconsciously take them as true and real is the barrier holding us back. We take them as true and real until we shine awareness on them. (Location 511)
When you encounter the barrier, your Upper Limit Problem is triggered. The form it takes depends on which fears and false beliefs you picked up in your early life. (Location 518)
Four fears and four related false beliefs hold the Upper Limit Problem in place. The fears are based on specific long-ago situations you will probably recognize when I show them to you. The beliefs based on those fears are false and cause you to have a misunderstanding about who you actually are. (Location 520)
Hidden Barrier no. 1: Feeling Fundamentally Flawed
If you have a deep, old feeling that there’s something wrong, bad, or flawed about you, you will find yourself grappling with that issue every time you break through to greater love and financial abundance. (Location 536)
When you surpass your Upper Limit thermostat setting, a little voice admonishes you from deep within your mind: you should not be this happy (or rich or creative) because you are fundamentally flawed. This thought creates cognitive dissonance, the mind rattle that occurs when you try to hold two opposing thoughts at the same time: Given that I am fundamentally flawed (or wrong or bad), how can I possibly be this happy, rich, and creative? The cognitive dissonance must be resolved in one of two ways: by returning to your previous thermostat setting; or by letting go of the old, limiting belief, which allows you to stabilize at the new, higher level. (Location 537)
The best way is to shine the light of awareness on the thought that you are fundamentally flawed and label it as what it is: an Upper Limit bug. ... The other way to stop the cognitive dissonance is to pull back from your success and not challenge the false belief. This move brings you back down into a zone you’re familiar with. The bug wins, and you lose. (Location 542)
The fear of being fundamentally flawed brings with it a related fear. It’s the fear that if you did make a full commitment to living in your Zone of Genius, you might fail. It’s the belief that even your genius is flawed, and that if you expressed it in a big way, it wouldn’t be good enough. This belief tells you to play it safe and stay small. That way, if you fail, at least you fail small. (Location 560)
Hidden Barrier no. 2: Disloyalty and Abandonmen
You’re likely to feel, at a deep and unconscious level, that your quest for a life of your own and success on your own terms has come at the cost of leaving behind your roots and being disloyal to those who loved you. The guilt you feel makes you put on the brakes, holding yourself back from ultimate success and keeping you from enjoying the success you already have. (Location 573)
Behind every communication problem is a sweaty ten-minute conversation you don’t want to have. However, the moment you work up the courage to have it, you collect an instant reward in relief as well as open up a flow of communication that will allow you to resolve the situation. (Location 604)
Hidden Barrier no. 3: Believing That More Success Brings a Bigger Burden
An old belief that you’re a burden can hold you back from expanding to your full capacity for success and enjoyment. If this belief has a grip on you, your Upper Limit mantra goes like this: I can’t expand to my highest potential because I’d be an even bigger burden than I am now. (Location 609)
Hidden Barrier no. 4: The Crime of Outshining
The unconscious mantra of the outshining barrier goes like this: I must not expand to my full success, because if I did I would outshine _____________________ and make him or her look or feel bad. (Location 641)
This barrier is very common among gifted and talented children. They get a lot of their parents’ attention, but they also get a strong subliminal message along with it: don’t shine too much, or you’ll make others feel bad or look bad. (Location 643)
One unconscious solution gifted children devise is to turn down the volume on their genius so the others don’t feel threatened by it. ... If they can appear to be suffering, they can get empathy and sympathy from others instead of jealousy. (Location 645)
A hex is often put on gifted and talented people early in life. The hex causes them to feel bad when they shine especially brightly. (Location 680)
GOING FORWARD
Your Upper Limit Problem lives in the moment-by-moment interactions you have with yourself and the people around you. There is only one way to get this data, and that is to focus your keen awareness on specific aspects of your daily life. (Location 707)
Chapter 3: Getting Specific
How to Spot the Upper Limit Problem in Daily Life
When I was learning to drive, I remember my instructor telling me that driving was more an art than a science. The key to the art, he said, was what he called “benign vigilance,” or, paying keen but relaxed attention to what your car and the other cars were doing in every moment. Your journey in the Zone of Genius is just like that. In learning to live in your Zone of Genius, you’ll benefit from making a lifelong pursuit out of spotting your Upper Limit behaviors. Make spotting them part of your daily ongoing maintenance procedures, just like brushing your teeth or adjusting the side mirrors of your car. (Location 716)
TYPICAL WAYS WE UPPER-LIMIT OURSELVES
Years ago a client of mine invented a new verb to describe his Upper Limit behavior. He said, “The other day I caught myself in the act of Upper-Limiting myself.” ... When you’re “Upper-Limiting,” you’re doing something that is crimping your flow of positive energy. (Location 722)
Worry
The crucial sign that we’re worrying unnecessarily is when we’re worrying about something we have no control over. Worrying is useful only if it concerns a topic we can actually do something about, and if it leads to our taking positive action right away. All other worry is just Upper Limit noise, designed by our unconscious to keep us safely within our Zone of Excellence or Zone of Competence. (Location 728)
When things are going well for us, our Upper Limit mechanism kicks in and we suddenly start worrying about things going wrong in some way. (Location 731)
If you notice your worry-thoughts—really study them carefully for a couple of days—you’ll find something that may surprise you: almost none of your worry-thoughts have anything to do with reality. (Location 735)
There’s a good way to know if a worry-thought is something you should pay attention to. Just ask yourself: Is it a real possibility? And… Is there any action I can take right now to make a positive difference? (Location 739)
When things are going well, or when you’re feeling particularly good, you can always bring yourself down by manufacturing a stream of worry-thoughts. Once you’ve brought yourself down by worrying, it’s very tempting to inflict those worry-thoughts on others. If we’re in the grip of worrying while someone around us isn’t, we seem to have an almost uncontrollable urge to criticize that person until he or she jumps into the stream of negativity with us. (Location 749)
I encourage you to make a careful study of your worry habits. I’ve seen a lot of lives change, including my own, when people drop their addiction to worry. And yes, worry is definitely an addiction. In fact, worrying is like playing a slot machine in a gambling casino. Occasionally the worrier will hit the jackpot and be rewarded for something that actually happens. If you worry long enough about the stock market crashing, you’ll eventually hit the jackpot, because from time to time it’s always going to crash. (Location 778)
Worry: What You Can Do Right Now
I notice myself worrying about something. I let go of the worry-thoughts, shifting my focus away from them. I wonder: what positive new thing is trying to come into being? I usually get a body feeling (not a thought or idea) of where that positive new thing is trying to come through. I open my focus to feel that body feeling deeply. I let myself feel it deeply for as long as I possibly can. Later, I often get an idea of the positive thing that was trying to come through. (Location 803)
With practice you’ll get very nimble at noticing which thoughts are ones you should pay attention to and which ones you can dismiss. (Location 837)
Imagine squeezing a tennis ball in your hand, then releasing your grip and dropping the ball. A lot of people don’t realize that they can dismiss worry-thoughts just like that. One moment the thoughts have a grip on you; then you suddenly realize it’s you who have the grip on them. You release the grip, and the thoughts disappear. They come back again, and you release them again. With practice, they disappear and don’t come back, if you give your mind a more productive thing to do. The productive thing to do is to look for the positive new emergence that’s trying to happen. In other words, when you find yourself worrying, know that there is something positive trying to break through. (Location 839)
Science tells us that it took a very long time for our fish ancestors to evolve the necessary equipment to turn those initial flops on dry land into walks. Now we’re in a stage of evolution in which we’re doing the inner equivalent of those early fish flops: we’re learning to let ourselves enjoy love, abundance, and other forms of positive energy without sabotaging ourselves. (Location 851)
Criticism and Blame
I mentioned earlier that most worry-thoughts have absolutely nothing to do with reality. That’s true for criticism, too. In other words, when we criticize something, it usually doesn’t have anything to do with the thing we’re criticizing. When we blame someone or something, we’re doing it because we’ve hit our Upper Limit and are trying to retard the flow of positive energy. (Location 856)
Criticism and blame are addictions. They are costly addictions, because they are the number-one destroyer of intimacy in close relationships. (Location 864)
Self-criticism and criticizing others are one and the same. In other words, self-blame is part of the same Upper Limit pattern as blaming someone else. Both criticizing yourself and criticizing others are highly addictive and very popular ways of busting up the flow of positive energy. (Location 870)
Remember earlier when I said that worry is useful only if it concerns something real that you can do something about? Criticism works the same way. It is useful only if it’s directed at a specific thing and produces a useful result. For example, if I’m standing on your toe in an elevator, go ahead and criticize me. It’s useful, especially if it produces the result of liberating your toe from the tyranny of my shoe. (Location 872)
Chronic criticism and chronic blame are the behaviors we really need to eliminate. They are never about producing a result. (Location 875)
become a keen observer of critical statements that come out of your mouth or fly through your mind. Begin to sort them into two piles: Pile One contains all the criticisms about real things you plan to do something about (“Hey, you’re standing on my toe. Get off!”); Pile Two contains all the others. I predict you’ll make the humbling but liberating discovery, as I did, that Pile Two towers over the paltry stack in Pile One. (Location 898)
Deflecting
Many of us crimp the flow of positive energy by avoiding it altogether. The mechanism we use is what I call deflection; ... Think of how many times you’ve heard conversations like the following example of deflection: JOE: You did a great job on that presentation. JACK: Nah, I ran out of time and had to leave out some of the best stuff. JOE: Still, I noticed that people were really paying attention. JACK: I’m glad they weren’t paying too close attention, because they would have seen more places I messed up. (Location 903)
Deflection keeps the positive energy from landing, being received, and being acknowledged. Notice how simple and gracious it would be if Jack handled the moment in a different way: by receiving and acknowledging the positive energy instead of deflecting it: JOE: You did a great job on that presentation. JACK: Thanks. I appreciate you for saying that. I’m glad it came across well, because I felt bad about running out of time and leaving out some of the best stuff. Here, Jack received the appreciation instead of flicking it off. He acknowledged Joe for the expression of positive energy, adding his own reservations about the presentation only after he let the appreciation land on him. (Location 909)
Deflection keeps us from challenging ourselves, preventing us from expanding our capacity for experiencing positive energy. (Location 916)
Here’s what to do when you notice yourself deflecting. When someone says the equivalent of “Nice shot” to you, pause for a moment to register the beam of positive energy that’s being aimed at you. Then thank the person who beamed it your way. (Location 933)
The art of getting beyond our Upper Limit Problem has a lot to do with creating space within us to feel and appreciate natural good feelings. By natural I mean good feelings that aren’t induced by alcohol, sugar, and other short-term fixes. Letting yourself savor natural good feelings is a direct way to transcend your Upper Limit Problem. By extending your ability to feel positive feelings, you expand your tolerance for things going well in your life. (Location 939)
Squabbling
Arguments are caused by two people (or two countries) racing to occupy the victim position in the relationship. Person A claims the victim position (“Why are you doing this to me?”) and then tries to get person B to agree with that assessment. In other words, person B has to agree that he or she is the persecutor. Therein lies the problem. It’s almost impossible to get the other guy to agree that it’s his fault. In nearly five thousand sessions of assisting people in resolving conflicts, I have never, ever witnessed the following kind of interchange: PERSON A: Why are you making me so miserable? This problem is entirely your fault. PERSON B: Wow, thanks for pointing that out. I agree completely. It’s clear that I’m the perpetrator, you’re the victim, and your misery is entirely my fault. (Location 959)
Once the race for the victim position is under way, each person must find some way to out-victim the other. In other words, each person must present an escalating series of “proofs” that he or she is the real victim. (Location 973)
Understanding the physics of arguments will reveal how conflicts—whether between a couple, board members, countries, or religious groups—can be resolved. ... The key insight: each entity in a situation represents 100 percent. Each entity in a conflict has 100 percent of the responsibility for resolving the conflict. In other words, person A is a whole and complete 100 percent, and person B is a whole and complete 100 percent. If two people are involved, there is 200 percent responsibility to be divided up. The fatal mistake is thinking that there is 100 percent of responsibility to be divided up; this approach requires each person to take some portion of the 100 percent. It’s a massive thinking error that causes massive problems, because it leads to endless jockeying for the victim position. ... If both people will claim 100 percent responsibility, there’s a possibility of ending the conflict. Nothing less than 100 percent will work. Since there’s 200 percent responsibility to be shared, jockeying for the victim position means that you’re demanding that the other person take more than 100 percent while you take less than 100 percent. Nobody in his right mind would agree to a deal like that, (Location 982)
When people step out of the victim position and take 100 percent responsibility, their marriages and their businesses flourish. (Location 1006)
Getting Sick, Getting Hurt
When things are going well, some of us have a pattern that is pure Upper Limit Problem: we get sick or get hurt. (Location 1010)
THE THREE P'S
Your exploration will go easier if you have a map. The map I use is what I call the Three Ps: punishment, prevention, and protection. The Three Ps can help you understand the real driving force behind many illnesses and accidents. (Location 1025)
Many physical symptoms such as headache and back pain are warning signs, like the flapping and wobble of a flat tire when you’re driving on the highway. The symptoms are saying, Slow down, stop what you’re doing, and pay attention, because there’s something out of integrity here. (Location 1049)
I link together the other two Ps—prevention and protection—because they almost always occur at the same time. Here’s the bottom line on prevention and protection: when you suffer symptoms of illness or experience an accident, you often do so because you’re unconsciously trying to prevent yourself from having to do something you don’t really want to do and/or protect yourself from something you don’t want to feel. The illness or accident is your unconscious mind’s clunky way of doing you a favor. (Location 1057)
Sometimes a headache’s just a headache, but often if you look a little deeper you’ll find that it’s an expression of your Upper Limit Problem. Then, it’s a signal that you need to expand instead of contract. It’s telling you that it’s time to open up and embrace a new high-water mark of positive energy that’s trying to establish itself in you. Underneath the headache might be an insight that is as powerfully positive as the pain is negative. (Location 1092)
INTEGRITY BREACH
Committing a breach of integrity is one of the quickest ways to bring yourself down after an excursion past your Upper Limit. The most popular integrity breaches are lies, broken agreements, and withheld truths. If you will begin to focus your keen awareness on those three behaviors, you can make huge strides in transcending your Upper Limit and establishing yourself in your Zone of Genius. (Location 1101)
Thinking of integrity as a physics issue gives you a much more practical tool than regarding it simply as a moral issue. (Location 1109)
Think of communication between people as a flow of energy. Think of your communication with your own inner depths in the same way. A breach of integrity stops the flow of energy, just as a pebble jammed in a garden hose stops the flow of water. (Location 1111)
An Upper Limit Problem puts people into an altered state of consciousness. We “go unconscious” in the sense of losing touch with our rational faculties. We don’t see the bigger picture. (Location 1155)
THE FIRST STEP TO WHOLENESS: DISCOVERING YOUR STORY
Almost all of us have a story about why we don’t access our genius. When we are within that story, it is very difficult to know that it’s just a story. What makes those stories seem so real (hard to recognize as “just stories”) is that they were being told before we were born. We’re born into stories that keep us from accessing our genius. We grow up among those stories and become like fish that aren’t aware of the water they’re swimming in. (Location 1227)
THE ATTITUDE
As you go about your discoveries, you’ll benefit from adopting an attitude of wonder instead of blame. In other words, being lighthearted about noticing your Upper Limit behaviors will help you make progress faster than if you criticize yourself for every little thing. (Location 1245)
If you’re willing to adopt a playful attitude toward yourself and your shortcomings, you can make extraordinarily rapid progress. (Location 1249)
ACTION STEPS
Make a commitment to keeping an attitude of wonder and play while learning about your Upper Limit behaviors. Say this sentence in your mind as often as you like. It expresses the attitude I’d like you to embody: I commit to discovering my Upper Limit behaviors, and to having a good time while I’m learning about them. You can learn a lot more with a spirit of wonder and enjoyment than you can with an attitude of criticism. (Location 1260)
Make a list of your Upper Limit behaviors. Here are some of the most common ones: Worrying Blame and criticism Getting sick or hurt Squabbling Hiding significant feelings Not keeping agreements Not speaking significant truths to the relevant people. (If you’re mad at John, he’s the relevant person to talk to. It doesn’t help to tell Fred that you’re mad at John.) Deflecting. (Brushing off compliments is a good example of deflecting) When you notice yourself doing one of the things on your Upper Limit list, such as worrying, or failing to communicate some truth, shift your attention to the real issue: expanding your capacity for abundance, love, and success. (Location 1264)
Consciously let yourself make more room in your awareness for abundance, love, and success. Use the resources of your whole being, not just your mind. For example, feel more love in your chest and heart area. Savor the body feeling, as well as the mental satisfaction, of success and abundance. (Location 1274)
Chapter 4: Building a New Home in Your Zone of Genius
How to Make Every Moment an Expression of Your Genius
We all need to be on the lookout for signs of our Upper Limit Problem every day of our lives. It’s a constant quest, because we’re always raising the bar on ourselves. (Location 1309)
Unless you’re very lucky or very enlightened, you’re likely to hear those nattering voices and feel those nagging fears within you. They’re part of the deal. I won’t try to talk you out of them, and you shouldn’t try to talk yourself out of them, either. Just notice the voices and feel the fears. That’s all you need to do with them. You don’t need to rid yourself of them. Where would they go, anyway? All you need to do is acknowledge them, wave to them, let them know you’re aware of them. Then get busy learning to live in your Zone of Genius. (Location 1354)
YOUR GENIUS COMMITMENT
In your Zone of Genius, you don’t feel like you’re working. Even though the time you spend there produces great financial abundance, you do not feel that you are expending effort to produce it. In your Zone of Genius, work doesn’t feel like work. (Location 1362)
In your Zone of Genius, time feels completely different. Time seems to expand to support your activities. You have plenty of time to do what you most want to do. (Location 1364)
I’ve found that it’s essential to begin with a commitment to living in your Zone of Genius. Your commitment must come before you know how to make good on it. (Location 1369)
I commit to living in my Zone of Genius, now and forever. (Location 1376)
Repeat it softly to yourself a few times, noticing how it feels to you. Then say it out loud a few times. Savor the different words and sounds of the sentence. When you are ready to make your formal commitment, speak the sentence from your heart, as a formal contract between you and the universe. (Location 1377)
THE GENIUS QUESTIONS
Your sincere commitment is the entry gate to the Zone of Genius. ... The bridge to your Zone of Genius is a set of questions to ask yourself. ... These questions are designed to bring forth hidden treasures from deep inside you. Wonder is the tool that invites these treasures up into the light. To wonder about something is to explore with an open mind and an open heart. (Location 1380)
Genius Question no. 1
What do I most love to do? (I love it so much I can do it for long stretches of time without getting tired or bored.) (Location 1387)
Genius Question no. 2
What work do I do that doesn’t seem like work? (I can do it all day long without ever feeling tired or bored.) (Location 1416)
If you’re like most of us, you feel sad or irritated about the amount of your precious time that gets eaten up in the necessary trivia of your day. As you get more successful, it’s common to feel a mounting pressure about this issue, an unnatural hurry-up that feels unhealthy to your well-being. I believe that the sense of mounting pressure is the call to live in your Zone of Genius. I’ve seen it disappear with miraculous speed when people opened up to wondering about what their true genius might be. (Location 1430)
Genius Question no. 3
In my work, what produces the highest ratio of abundance and satisfaction to amount of time spent? (Even if I do only ten seconds or a few minutes of it, an idea or a deeper connection may spring forth that leads to huge value.) (Location 1436)
Just politely thank your mind for the unsolicited advice, and then sit down and write anyway.” (Location 1486)
Genius Question no. 4
Take a deep breath, and expand to embrace a new conception of yourself. The fourth Genius Question invites you to think of who you are in most unusual terms. It asks you to identify a unique and priceless gift you carry within yourself. Your exploration into this aspect of yourself is not about self-flattery or expansion of your ego. It’s a clear-eyed look at a deep, innermost quality, with the intention of applying that quality to make your own life and the lives of others more valuable. (Location 1492)
What is my unique ability? (There’s a special skill I’m gifted with. This unique ability, fully realized and put to work, can provide enormous benefits to me and any organization I serve.) (Location 1496)
Have you seen a set of those little Russian dolls? When you open the big doll there’s a smaller one inside it, and hidden within that doll there’s an even smaller one. Using that image, think of your unique ability as a skill within a skill within a skill. Here’s what I mean: your unique ability is usually camouflaged inside a larger skill you possess. You may not even realize that your unique ability is what is driving your success in applying the larger skill. (Location 1504)
ARTICULATING YOUR UNIQUE ABILITY
Recalling the image we used earlier about the Russian dolls, let’s focus first on the outermost doll. This is the larger skill within which is hidden your innate gift. (Location 1568)
The first place most of us use our unique ability is in navigating the tricky shoals of childhood. If you reflect on your unique ability, you’ll probably find that it made its appearance early in your life. You used it, probably without being aware of it, to cope with stressful situations and optimize your ability to thrive. (Location 1580)
I recommend that you deconstruct the set of Russian dolls until you uncover the one that contains your unique ability. Begin with a fundamental statement like this: I’m at my best when I’m _________ (Location 1592)
Let that statement resonate in your mind a few times; then speak it out loud. Discover what you come up with. Perhaps you come up with “I’m at my best when I’m generating ideas on a yellow legal pad” (Location 1594)
Once you’ve come up with a simple, clear statement of you at your best, go a little deeper. Use a statement like the following to zoom in for a closer look: When I’m at my best, the exact thing I’m doing is _________________________________________________. (Location 1597)
Go for a more detailed description, such as “When I’m generating ideas on a yellow legal pad, the exact thing I’m doing is doodling and enjoying the feeling of creating something out of nothing.” (Location 1600)
Go even deeper with a sentence like this one: When I’m doing that, the thing I love most about it is ____________________________________________________. For example, “When I’m doodling and creating something out of nothing, the thing I love most is not knowing where it’s going to take me. I love the surprise factor, the excitement of seeing what’s going to emerge.” (Location 1602)
You’ll be able to know you’re getting closer to your unique ability when you feel an inner glow of wonder and excitement. (Location 1605)
Chapter 5: Living in Your Zone of Genius
Using the Ultimate Success Mantra to Thrive in Love, Abundance, and Creativity
OUT OF THE BOX AND ONTO THE SPIRAL
There’s a phrase I use in teaching people how to live in the Zone of Genius: get out of the box and onto the spiral. Here’s what I mean by it. I think of the Zone of Genius as a continuous spiral. You go higher and higher every day as you expand your capacity for more love, abundance, and success. It’s an upward journey with no upper limit. By contrast, I think of the lower zones as boxes. (Location 1618)
You need to get out of any boxes you’re in so you can taste the sweet freedom of living on a continuous upward spiral. (Location 1623)
THE ULTIMATE SUCCESS MANTRA: A CENTRAL GUIDING INTENTION
The first shortcut is to organize your inner operating system around what I call a Central Guiding Intention. The Central Guiding Intention is a metaprogram I want you to install at the root, or source, of your being. I want you to store it alongside other essential metaprograms such as Relating to Gravity and Eating When Hungry. Your Central Guiding Intention will help you live easefully in your Zone of Genius. The Central Guiding Intention for living in your Zone of Genius is what I call the Ultimate Success Mantra. (Location 1628)
A mantra is a sound or idea that you use as a focal point in meditation. In some meditation systems, the mantra is a word or sound from an ancient language such as Sanskrit or Hebrew. In other systems it might be an idea, such as “Focus your awareness on your breathing.” (Location 1633)
You focus your attention on the mantra. Then, when your attention wanders, you return your attention to the mantra. The mantra gives you a home base to come back to whenever you notice that your mind has taken an excursion into the past or the future. The mantra is designed to help you return to the present moment. (Location 1636)
The art of meditation is in the way you let go of your wander-thoughts and return to the mantra. Specifically, the art is in letting go of the wander-thoughts and returning to the mantra without giving yourself a hard time about wandering. It’s common in the beginning stages of meditation to criticize yourself when your mind wanders, to think of meditation as a conflict between your mantra and your wander-thoughts. As your practice matures, though, you usually realize that criticizing yourself for your mind’s wandering is just another thought. You let go of it and return to the mantra. Gradually the habit of self-criticism disappears and is replaced by an openhearted feeling of self-acceptance. (Location 1645)
YOUR ULTIMATE SUCCESS MANTRA
The USM is a comprehensive intention you’ll use to center yourself in your Zone of Genius. It’s a set of instructions to your conscious and unconscious mind, designed to inform all your actions and decisions. If you use the USM as instructed, your life will gradually conform to the comprehensive intention contained within it. (Location 1654)
I expand in abundance, success, and love every day, as I inspire those around me to do the same. (Location 1657)
thorough tryout in your own consciousness. Here’s what the Ultimate Success Mantra does for you on a moment-by-moment basis. It beams a key instruction to your conscious and unconscious mind. It tells you to expand, rather than contract or remain as is, in three key areas of your development: abundance, love, and success. The USM directly counters the Upper Limit Problem, which is based on instructions from long ago to contract or to hold yourself in check. The USM is the antidote to years of conditioning, the ancient programming that convinced your unconscious mind you don’t deserve full success. I want you to mount a gentle but unstoppable offensive against that conditioning, and the Universal Success Mantra is the best way I’ve found to do that. (Location 1665)
HOW TO USE THE ULTIMATE SUCCESS MANTRA
I recommend you use the USM in two specific ways: formally, as a meditation practice; and informally, as you go about your daily life. The USM is very powerful, so a little bit of it goes a long way. You don’t need to rent a cave in Tibet or devote years to the practice. All you need to do is slip the USM into your thought stream from time to time, and watch the magic unfold in your life. (Location 1672)
To use the USM as a formal meditation, find a place where you can sit quietly for five to ten minutes. Close your eyes, and rest for a minute or so until your system settles down. Once every fifteen to twenty seconds, whisper the USM softly to yourself; say the words quietly in your mind, like a faint thought. You don’t need to pronounce the words distinctly, as long as you can feel the concept of the USM. It will go like this: Whisper the USM softly to yourself. (It takes me five to seven seconds to do this.) Pause and rest with an open mind for ten to fifteen seconds. (This is about the time it takes for two slow, easy breaths.) Whisper the USM softly to yourself again. Pause and rest with an open mind for ten to fifteen seconds. Continue like this for five to ten minutes. When you feel you’re at a good stopping place, pause and rest for a minute or two before returning to your normal activities. (Location 1674)
WHAT TO EXPECT
The ten to fifteen seconds of “pause and rest with an open mind” are just as important as saying the USM. You need to give your conscious and unconscious mind a few moments of open space in which to digest this powerful new idea. You also need to give yourself room to bring forth what I call back-talk from your old programming. Back-talk is what occurs when your old programming argues with the beautiful new idea you’re beaming into the depths of yourself. (Location 1684)
Here’s how to use the Ultimate Success Mantra informally, as an addition to your daily life. Occasionally throughout the day, float the USM through your mind or speak it out loud. Just slip it into your ordinary thought stream as you move through your day. I also recommend writing it out on three-by-five cards or sticky notes and posting it in various places where you’ll see it during the day. I put it in places where I look often, such as the dashboard of my car or a corner of my desk. (Location 1697)
A KEY SHORTCUT: THE ENLIGHTENED NO
I call it the Enlightened No because you’re saying no in the service of your genius. You’re not saying no for all the usual reasons, such as money, dislike, lack of time, and so forth. You’re saying no because you’ve chosen to focus on activities that are clearly in your Zone of Genius. Saying no for that reason even has an inspirational effect on the people you’re turning down. (Location 1704)
Each time you say an Enlightened No to something that does not serve your genius, you build a stronger foundation for yourself in the zone. (Location 1728)
ANOTHER SHORTCUT: RENEWING AND REFINING COMMITMENT
The moment you make a sincere commitment to living in your Zone of Genius, you propel yourself in that direction. Once you’re in the zone, commitment also works magnificently well as a steering mechanism and calibration device to keep you centered there. (Location 1731)
Your ego has every right to be scared. It’s on notice. In the Zone of Genius, you have no need for your ego. In the Zone of Genius, you don’t care about getting approval, getting control, getting even, or any of the other get-oriented goals of the ego. You’re a free agent there, ready to respond to the infinite possibilities of the present moment. (Location 1742)
Living in the Zone of Genius is like riding a bicycle. It’s not that hard once you get the hang of it. (Location 1752)
When I hit a wobbly spot on the journey, I seize the moment to make a recommitment. From time to time you will probably lose focus and your attention will wander. It comes with the territory. When it happens, though, it doesn’t need to be a big deal. It simply means that you need to recommit to what you’ve chosen to be here for: expressing your genius in the world in ways that help you and others thrive. (Location 1754)
One of the most delicious feelings in the world comes from seeing people actually becoming inspired by your commitment to living in your Zone of Genius. Not only is inspiring others good for the others; it feels wonderful to you, too. (Location 1765)
Chapter 6: Living in Einstein Time
Creating Time for the Full Expression of Your Genius
For your life to work harmoniously, you need to develop a harmonious relationship with time. (Location 1771)
If you get a handle on how time actually operates, your work flows gracefully and at high performance. If you don’t, it doesn’t. (Location 1773)
When you make the shift to Einstein Time, you experience a major surge in your productivity, creativity, and enjoyment. The shift takes place the moment you embrace one profoundly simple truth: You’re where time comes from. (Location 1781)
Embrace and embody this truth, and you can experience a quantum jump in productivity and free time. It works so well it may seem like magic, but it’s based on solid science inspired by Einstein’s physics. Once you understand that you’re where time comes from, you have the power to make as much of it as you want. You’re the boss. I know that might sound strange, but I promise you that this is the way time actually works. (Location 1784)
Now I invite you to make the bold move of changing to Einstein Time. If you’re using any time-management system, put it in a drawer and don’t look at it again. In reality, you probably haven’t been using it anyway. Einstein Time is a new kind of time management that reorganizes your conception of time at the very core. It doesn’t take any time to use it. In fact, it generates time while also producing abundant rewards in creativity, feelings of ease, and financial well-being. (Location 1809)
This new way of being with time delivers four main benefits: You get more done in less time. You enjoy plenty of time and abundant energy for your most important creative activities. You discover your unique abilities and how to express them. You feel good inside. (Location 1813)
THE SOLUTION
Einstein Time gives you a way to expand the amount of time you have for creative expression and intimate connections. With Einstein Time, you not only save time; you’ll learn how to become the source of time so you can make as much of it as you want. With Einstein Time, you’ll also discover how to liberate the energy you need for accomplishing your most precious activities. You’ll understand exactly what drains your creative energy and how to stop the drain. (Location 1828)
The result: no more rushing, no more time pressure, no more feeling exhausted because you worked all day and didn’t get any of the important things done. Instead, you have plenty of time, an abundance of energy, and the skills that will keep both time and energy in a constant state of refreshing renewal. (Location 1832)
THE OLD PARADIGM
The Newtonian view says there’s only a finite amount of time, and it must be carefully portioned out so there will be enough of it to do the things we need to do. The Newtonian paradigm assumes that there’s a scarcity of time, which leads to an uncomfortable feeling of time urgency inside us. (Location 1842)
Newtonian time scarcity is just a stage we’re passing through, just as Newtonian physics was a stage we passed through on the way to Einstein’s breakthrough. (Location 1847)
THE NEWTONIAN TIME TRAP IN DETAIL
The Newtonian paradigm guarantees that you will always have a problem with time. You’ll either have too little of it or too much. You’ll either have “no time at all” or be sitting around with “time on your hands.” You’ll be rushing to catch up or bored out of your wits. (Location 1849)
At the heart of the Newtonian time crunch is a dualistic split: we are deluded into thinking that time is “out there,” an actual physical entity that can put pressure on us “in here.” (Location 1856)
Newtonian dualism pits us against time. In this paradigm, we think of time as the master and us as its slave. At the extreme, time becomes our persecutor, and we think of ourselves as its victim. Since time feels like an ever-present entity hovering in the background of our lives, we come to feel that we’re victims of an entity that’s always there, all the time. Such a view is dangerous to our health, disastrous for our business, and ruinous to our relationships with family and friends. (Location 1860)
OUR TIME PROBLEM: A SPACE PROBLEM
To get to the new, expanded version of time offered by Einstein, we also need to make a few changes in how we think about space. When we’re running on Einstein Time, our experience of time changes because we make a fundamental change in how much space we are willing to occupy. By learning to occupy space in a new way, we actually gain the ability to generate more time. (Location 1865)
Here’s a practical example. Recall Einstein’s colloquial explanation of relativity: an hour with your beloved feels like a minute; a minute on a hot stove feels like an hour. This example has everything you need to understand Einstein Time and its powerful positive ramifications for how we live our lives. If you are forced to sit on a hot stove, you become preoccupied with trying not to occupy the space you’re in. You withdraw your consciousness toward your core, contracting away from the pain of contact with the stove. The act of contracting your awareness away from space makes time congeal. It seems to slow down and harden into a solid mass. The more you cringe from the pain, the slower time gets. When you’re embracing your beloved, though, your awareness flows in the opposite direction, toward space. When you’re with your beloved, every cell in your body yearns to be in union with him or her. Your awareness flows out toward your periphery. You want to occupy every possible smidgen of space in the yearned-for present. When you’re in love, you relax into the space around you and in you, and as your consciousness expands into space, time disappears. (Location 1868)
When you’re willing to occupy all space, time simply disappears. You’re everywhere all at once, there’s no place to get to, and everywhere you are it’s exactly the right time. (Location 1878)
Let’s say you notice that your belly muscles are particularly tight on a given morning. You’re busy, though, so you don’t stop to find out why your stomach’s so tight. In other words, you choose not to occupy the space of your tense belly by shining the light of awareness on it. You ignore it and hurry on. This is a costly moment, though, because by choosing not to become aware of why your belly muscles are so tight, you sentence yourself to a daylong battle with time. (Location 1881)
THE TRUTH ABOUT TIME AND ALL THE THINGS YOU REALLY DON’T WANT TO DO
The concept is so unusual that it can’t be understood in the usual way. We have to peel off layers of old, erroneous programming in order get to the elegant, simple truth of it. One layer that needs to be peeled off is your time persona. (Location 1915)
“PARDON ME, MAY I BORROW YOUR PERSONA FOR A MOMENT?”
Part of our problem with time is related to the persona we have. A persona is a pattern of actions and feelings that came into being at a certain time in our lives, in response to certain conditions. Persona, a Latin word that means “mask,” is the root of our more familiar word personality. (Location 1918)
The same family can produce one child who wears a Rebel persona, another child with a Mom’s Helper persona, and a third with a Class Clown persona. (Location 1922)
WHAT YOU REALLY NEED TO KNOW ABOUT YOUR PERSONA
Everybody’s got at least one persona, and most of us have two or three we wear for different occasions. (Location 1925)
Here’s the quirky truth that gets overlooked: most of us probably don’t realize that the persona we’re wearing is actually a persona. For example, if you’ve been wearing a Shy Kid persona since you were in kindergarten, as an adult you may actually think you’re shy. You may not realize that it’s like a suit you put on early in life and have been wearing so long you think it’s your skin. (Location 1926)
Part of becoming a grown-up is learning to spot when we’re operating out of a persona. Part of growing up is discarding the personas that aren’t contributing to our happiness and success in life. (Location 1929)
Most of us adopt a persona in regard to time, and then we forget it’s a persona. We lose sight of the fact that we can take it on and off; it becomes ingrained and semipermanent. Let me give you two examples of time personas from opposite ends of the spectrum. At one end there’s the Time Cop, who gets there on time and reminds others to do the same. The Time Cop gets frustrated because people don’t show up on time, and gets particularly furious with those folks at the other end of the spectrum, the Time Slackers. If you wear the Time Slacker persona, you’re always getting hassled for being late or not showing up at all. If you’re a Time Cop, you’re often hassling people for not keeping their time agreements. (Location 1937)
EINSTEIN TIME
When we switch to Einstein Time, we take charge of the amount of time we have. We realize that we’re where time comes from. We embrace this liberating insight: since I’m the producer of time, I can make as much of it as I need! By getting the truth of this statement, we make a major adjustment in ourselves. We heal the dualistic split embedded in the Newtonian relationship with time. We are no longer in an us-versus-them relationship with time. We’re the source of time, and by realizing that fact we become the truth of it. (Location 1958)
Quit thinking time is “out there.” Take ownership of time—acknowledge that you are where it comes from—and it will stop owning you. Claim time as yours, and it will release its claim on you. The best way I’ve found to do that is to become nimble at asking a specific question. The question allows you to seize the controls of your time and your life. (Location 1967)
To generate an abundance of time, ask yourself, Where in my life am I not taking full ownership? Another way to ask it is: What am I trying to disown? Or: What aspect of my life do I need to take full ownership of? (Location 1974)
Here’s the principle behind the question: stress and conflict are caused by resisting acceptance and ownership. If there is any part of ourselves or our lives that we’re not fully willing to accept, we will experience stress and friction in that area. The stress will disappear the moment we accept that part and claim ownership of it. At that moment, the disowned part of us is embraced into the wholeness of ourselves, and from that place of wholeness, miracles are born. (Location 1980)
HOW TO BEGIN
Begin with time itself. Do whatever it takes to get yourself in harmony with the reality that you’re the source of time. Once you’re convinced, start acting as if it’s true. A simple way to begin is to put yourself on a radical diet: complete abstinence from complaining about time. This courageous move will take you out of the victim position in regard to time. When you stop complaining about time, you cease perpetuating the destructive myth that (Location 1991)
Notice the conversations around you this week. See how many times you hear things like: “I wish I had time to stop and chat, but I’m in a hurry.” “Where did the time go?” “There simply aren’t enough hours in the day.” “If only I’d gotten another hour of sleep.” “Love to talk but I’ve gotta run…” “I have to get to the bank…” “I don’t have time to do that right now.” Each of those statements contains an overt or covert complaint, portraying the speaker as a victim of time. It treats time as a scarce commodity, sending the message that time is “out there” and that there isn’t enough of it “in here.” (Location 1996)
The moment you stop complaining about time, you free up the necessary energy to mount a similar campaign on the inner plane. You will need that energy, because it is one thing to stop complaining that you are the victim of time, but it is quite another to stop feeling that you’re its victim. (Location 2006)
One particular phrase I’d like you to eliminate is this common one: I don’t have time to do that right now. ... It’s a lie for two reasons: First, time is not something you have or don’t have. You’re the source of it, and you make as much of it as you want. Second, when you say, “I don’t have time to do that right now,” you’re telling a polite lie to avoid saying, “I don’t want to do that right now.” By placing the blame on time, you avoid confronting the blunt truth of the matter. (Location 2008)
I’m advocating that you stop using time or lack of time as an excuse. (Location 2020)
THE SENSATION OF TIME PRESSURE
Notice what time pressure feels like in your body. Think of it as another sensation like hunger. We usually register hunger as gnawing, unpleasant contractions in the middle of the front of our bodies. What does time pressure feel like in your body? What does being in a hurry feel like? What does the sluggish side of the time continuum—the sensation most people call “boredom”—feel like to you? (Location 2023)
AN INVITATION
The original insight—that we are the source of time, that time is not a pressure from outside, that we can make as much as we need—takes only a split second to comprehend. However, it takes a lot of practice to integrate that insight into the practicalities of our lives. The main thing it takes is keen attention. Be on the lookout constantly for complaints about time that come out of your mouth or go through your mind. As you spot them and eliminate them one by one, you will grow steadily less busy while getting a great deal more done. (Location 2057)
Chapter 7: Solving the Relationship Problem
Transcending the Upper Limits of Love and Appreciation
A vast amount of energy can be liberated in relationships by dropping the habit of projection. (Location 2105)
Projection is the source of power struggles that eat up energy and intimacy in relationships. Power struggles are a war between two people to see whose version of reality will win out. Much of the energy in troubled relationships is drained through power struggles about who’s right, who’s wrong, and who’s the biggest victim. Relationships—healthy ones, that is—exist only between equals. When both people are not taking 100 percent responsibility, it is an entanglement, not a relationship. There is only one way to transform an entanglement into a relationship: both people must drop projection and see that they are 100 percent the creators of their reality. With the energy saved from banishing power struggles, much more can be co-created than the partners could have created on their own. (Location 2111)
If you’re a successful person in a close relationship, you will likely find the following suggestions helpful. Make sure you take plenty of time for yourself, in a space apart from your partner. It could even be in the next room, so long as the intention is to nurture the independent part of you. Human beings have twin drives of equal power: the urge to merge and the urge to be an autonomous person. For a relationship to thrive, both drives need to be celebrated. A close relationship stirs up powerful transformative energies, and you need lots of rest time to integrate the rapid-fire stimulation that a relationship provides. If you can learn to take time off from the relationship consciously, you won’t need to do it unconsciously by starting arguments and engaging in other intimacy-destroying moves. Go on solo walks, take in a movie by yourself, spend an afternoon doing whatever the spirit moves you to do. These periods of battery-charging alone time give you the ability to master longer and longer periods of closeness when you’re in union with your beloved. (Location 2137)
Put a priority on speaking the microscopic truth, especially about what is going on in your emotions. Get skilled at simple microscopic truths such as “I’m sad,” “I’m scared,” and “I feel angry.” Communicating about feelings, dreams, desires, and other inner experiences creates deep intimacy in relationships. (Location 2146)
When emotions are in the air, as they often will be in close relationships, don’t try to talk yourself or your partner out of them. Eliminate phrases such as “Please don’t cry” and “There’s nothing to be angry about.” Feelings are to be felt, so encourage each other to go through complete cycles of emotions. If you’re sad, let yourself feel that way until you don’t feel sad anymore. Same thing with fear, anger, happiness,… (Location 2149)
Give yourself and your partner plenty of nonsexual touch. Sexual touch is great, but humans need nonsexual touch in large quantities. A loving hand squeeze or a touch on the shoulder… (Location 2154)
After soaring to a new height of intense intimacy, bring yourself back to ground in a positive way. Many people, when they enjoy a time of deep closeness, unconsciously create an argument or accident to get their feet back on the ground. It’s not necessary to use a painful method of grounding yourself. It works much better, and is much more fun, to come back to earth by doing some earthy dancing,… (Location 2156)
Cultivate at least three friends with whom you can form a No-Upper-Limits conspiracy. The word conspiracy comes from two Latin roots that together mean “to breathe together.” That’s the kind of conspiracy I want you to create. I want you to feel the power of two or more people in harmony, working toward a benign goal that’s good for all. You and the other members of your conspiracy will educate each other on the Upper Limit Problem. You will spot each other running Upper Limit behaviors such as worrying, getting sick, having accidents, and so forth. You and your conspiracy will gently remind each other that you create the quality of your life experience out of your beliefs. You’ll remind each other to examine those beliefs to make sure they’re giving you room for ultimate success in love and life. When you trip and fall, as we all tend… (Location 2159)
I also know, from painful experience, that the moment my attitude of cheerful humility slips into self-righteousness or arrogance, the universe will just as cheerfully step in with an unexpected way to make me humble again. The universe will teach us our lessons with the tickle of a feather or the whomp of a sledgehammer, depending on how open we are to learning the particular lesson. Getting stubborn and defensive invites the sledgehammer; getting open and curious invites the feather. It took me a long time to figure out who was in charge of the painfulness of my lessons. (Location 2174)
To prevent humiliating collisions with the universe, I suggest we all adopt an attitude of being open to learning in every moment of our relationships. Every interaction contains within it the possibility of deep connection with our beloved, with ourselves, and with the cosmos. Relationship is the ultimate spiritual path, because it constantly presents us with the challenge to love and embrace in the very situations in which we’re most prone to shun and reject. For that reason above all, relationship is the place where our spirituality most visibly comes to light. (Location 2178)
The key to spiritual development through relationship is being open to learning from every moment of interaction. By doing so, we welcome the ups and downs of relationship instead of resisting them. We approach each moment with an open mind and a willing heart. This attitude cuts down on friction, enhances the possibility of deep connection, and keeps us from being battered when turbulence occurs. (Location 2183)
Conclusion
As you move toward greater success, love, abundance, and creativity in your life, you will encounter the Upper Limit Problem. ... The Upper Limit Problem is our universal human tendency to sabotage ourselves when we have exceeded the artificial upper limit we have placed on ourselves. The Upper Limit Problem is caused by a too-low thermostat setting on our ability to achieve and enjoy our ultimate success. The thermostat gets set low early in our lives, at a time when we could not think for ourselves. Later, as we dream about big goals and move up into realms of love, abundance, and creativity that are above our old thermostat setting, we bump up against the artificial lid that was placed on our success through unconscious childhood decisions. Unless we solve the Upper Limit Problem, we will keep finding ways to bring ourselves back down when we’ve blown past our old setting. (Location 2193)
The childhood decisions all were made unconsciously as we navigated through difficult family crosscurrents. Those unconscious decisions become barriers we must overcome in order to express and enjoy our full measure of success. There are four of these barriers: (Location 2201)
The first barrier is the false belief that we are fundamentally flawed in some way. If we carry this feeling within us, we sabotage our success because we think we’re essentially bad. If something good happens, we must mess up to offset it, because good things can’t happen to bad people. (Location 2204)
The second barrier is the false belief that by succeeding, we are being disloyal to and leaving behind people in our past. If we harbor this feeling within us, we sabotage our success because we think it’s disloyal to our roots to soar too far into the stratosphere. (Location 2206)
The third barrier is the false belief that we are a burden in the world. If we carry this feeling inside us, we sabotage our success so that we won’t be a bigger burden. (Location 2209)
The fourth barrier is the false belief that we must dim the bright lights of our brilliance so that we won’t outshine someone in our past. If we hold this feeling inside us, we tend to hold ourselves back from expressing the full potential of our innate genius. (Location 2210)
Understanding why we’ve limited ourselves liberates a new energy in us, which we can draw on to propel us to new heights of abundance, love, and creativity. As we spiral upward in our quest to express our unique genius, we will likely soar past ghosts and shadows of those old barriers. For this reason, it’s best to think of our quest as a continuing journey of transcending upper limits. The payoff for the work is a gift of enduring value: we get to live in the full rainbow of our potential, in our Zone of Genius. In that exalted space, we enjoy the love, abundance, and success we create, and our very presence inspires people wherever we go in the world. (Location 2213)
We transcend our Upper Limit Problem each time we make more room inside us to feel more love, abundance, and success. It’s done moment by moment, and the moment goes like this: We catch ourselves worrying or starting an argument. Suddenly we realize we’re Upper-Limiting. We let go of the train of worry-thoughts or the huffy point of view, taking a deep breath or two for relaxation. Perhaps we wiggle our toes or stretch our shoulders in a gesture of opening up space to feel more love, success, and abundance. A moment later we break free of the Upper Limit and feel a flow of good feeling again. In wink-of-an-eye moments such as these, we expand our capacity to enjoy more love, abundance, and success. (Location 2218)
APPENDIX: Baby Steps and Big Leaps
My Early Adventures As an Entrepreneur
I’ve found that business and every other aspect of life goes much better if I stay in touch with the spiritual aspect of myself. (Location 2249)
if I make a split between money and spirituality, as I did for part of my life, I cannot harness the most awesome power we have, our spiritual essence. If we can heal that split and realize that money is simply spiritual energy in motion, we can put the power of spirit to work for us in creating wealth with ease and flow. (Location 2250)
I am part of the whole, all of which is governed by nature…. I am intimately related to all the parts, which are of the same kind as myself. If I remember these two things, I cannot be discontented with anything that arises out of the whole, because I am connected to the whole. (Location 2270)
I’ve now become convinced that we eventually become aware of our unity with the whole because it’s inescapable. The awareness is wired into us, because we’re wired into the universe. We can try with all our might to pretend we’re separate from the rest of the universe, but one way or the other it will catch up to us and welcome us back into its embrace. (Location 2274)
About the Author
GAY HENDRICKS has served for more than thirty years as one of the major contributors to the fields of relationship transformation and body-mind therapies. Throughout his career, Dr. Hendricks has coached more than eight hundred executives, including the top management at firms such as Dell, Hewlett-Packard, Motorola, and KLM. (Location 2376)
Dr. Hendricks received his Ph.D. in counseling psychology from Stanford University. (Location 2381)