Protect Your Boundaries
The seventh step of Rachel Rodger's "Millionaire Mindset" program hit me this morning: ENFORCE YOUR BOUNDARIES.
You cannot do everything, help everyone. And as power is an aphrodisiac, the more success you have, the healthier and happier you are, the more attractive you become. Your time and energy become more valuable, and as a result people will come knocking…and you simply don't have time to answer every call, let alone give everyone what they want. YOU SIMPLY CANNOT.
This is one reason your FIRST step needs to be triggering your survival drive, so that you can protect the treasure of your heart and mind.
But there is another issue, one you had better believe will hit you a you heal. And it is this: As you move forward, remember that your beliefs, values and actions will have to be VERY different to get different results. The people around you will begin to see you as alien. If you love them, you will want to stay connected enough to enjoy that mutual bond, but you CANNOT allow their "recipe" to cook your banquet.
You have to see their souls, but also the wounded ego that has to believe that no one could have done better than them in their situation. That they know everything there is to know about health, or love, or money, even if they are in disastrous straits.
You are not going to make that mistake. You are going to escape suffering and embrace joy. Were they to have YOUR attitude: "I don't know how to do this…but I'll learn" then they would search for the software to upgrade their computer. They are REALLY afraid that their machine is broken, and the egoic "I know better than people with better results" routine protects them from deep and gnawing fear.
They may be intelligent. REALLY intelligent. Sometimes, far more intelligent than you. But if they have not been WISE then they focused that intelligence on thing that are fascinating, but of relatively trivial import. Or they avoided pain buttons and focused on what was relatively easy for someone with their computing power. Math, for instance, is EASY compared to human relationships. And one day they look up and realize that they lost their way, are in terrible pain and suffering, and cannot see their way back. If they blame themselves, it might shatter them. Better to blame the world.
But if they were like YOU, they would care more about serving their tribe than "being right." And if you can help them out of an emergency situation, they might have time to think. And if they feel safe enough, they might be able to open their hand and release their death-grip on past decisions.
If you want to help them, remember that they want just a few basic things:
Hugs.
Resources
Strategy
"Hugs" simply means love. They need to know you care.
"Resources" means things like food and shelter. Real, tangible resources to take them out of survival emergency so that they can think clearly.
"Strategy" means the information that they can use to change their actions so that they get different results.
Compare this to the "Persuasion Framework":
Rapport
Break pattern
Connect desired behavior to personal values and ambitions.
If you can draw the connections here, you've taken a step.
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If you want to save drowning swimmers, don't get into shark infested waters with them unless you are prepared to die in the process. That's what you do for FAMILY. Otherwise, you get your feet on solid ground and throw them a life preserver. Or, stand on the shore and light a lantern to guide them. Remember that drowning swimmers will try to drag down the lifeguard. They don't HATE the lifeguard, its just that their forebrains have shut down.
People who have been running faulty software for decades have been slowly diverging from the path of life, just 1% per week or so. Small faulty angles, multiplied over time, make it easy to get lost. When you make the mistake of identifying with the erroneous actions rather than your potential, you will fight like a demon to protect the very errors that led you into quicksand, and people who try to throw you a rope can be seen as threats.
It is heart-breakingly sad. But if you would help them you have to be safe yourself. Otherwise you simply drown together.
Namaste
Steve
