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everyone loves magic and today i'm going to teach you how to perform some magical
mental alchemy
so you can turn your (bleep)
into gold
check it out
hi there ryan nichols here your source for tips and tools to help you
make the most
of yourself
the other night i was out at a sandwich shop grabbing uh... a late night bite to eat
as i was eating i noticed this guy nearby
who was clearly very unhappy
he was sitting there
uh... he had snuck a few beers into the restaurant and he was drowning his
sorrows right
after a while i finally asked him i said you know are you okay buddy what's going
on he looked at me surprised but also very happy to have someone to listen to
him
and he proceeded to launch into this long sad story
the key event was that he had been
fired from his job earlier in the day because he had showed up late to work
now after listening patiently to this guy's story - we'll call him steve -
uh... i decided to teach steve a little magic trick
and in all honesty ten minutes later
he left the shop
with his head up a big smile on his face and excited about what lies ahead
and that's the magical power
of mental alchemy it allowed steve
to turn his (bleep) into gold
right and you can do the same thing i'm gonna show you how
there five a simple steps
step one
is to wallow in it
yeah that's right
when life serves you a (bleep)
sandwich
you know that sucks and you're allowed to be none too pleased about it go ahead and
give yourself some poor me time throw yourself a little pity party
if you feel the need that's totally ok
it's justified
but here's the key
the pity party is short lived
it's not a
twelve-day pub crawl rock and it's definitely not something that you repeat
it's short
its finite have your little cry if you need to but get it out of your system
the duration of course is to be relative to the magnitude of the sandwich
ok but the same rule applies
in the case of my buddy steve
he'd already been wallowing in his misery for half the day
and his story which was in his head can be summarized as
poor me i lost my job probably will
never get another one life is hard everything
sucks
now i listened to steve for a bit commiserating with his plight long enough
so that he understood that i truly cared
now which i did
and i wanted but then i wanted him to move on i wanted him to know that it was time
to get out of the wallowing phase
and to move on to step two
step two
is to get some perspective
on the situation
what is the real significance of the crappy event
now sure it sucks but on a scale of one to seventeen where
one is i have an annoying case of the hiccups
and seventeen is nuclear armageddon
where does your problem lie and be honest
now once steve took a moment to be honest with himself he ackknowledged that
the job he lost sucked anyway he had been working for minimum wage in a restaurant
you know and there are plenty of other jobs and better jobs out there and losing his job was
far from massive catastrophe not at all
so we moved to step three which is to learn from the event
now having gone through whatever the crappy event is
what lessons are you able to take from it
what are you now more aware of than before what new insights do you have
about yourself your situation
about what you've been through
now for steve he started to explain to me that in fact he realized now he doesn't
want to work in in the restaurant industry anyway
his passions more in the realm of social work and that's where his focus
was and where it should be that's what he we went to school for
but he had falled off track a little bit and and was in a bit of a rut
we then moved to step four which is to be grateful for the gift
you know to find a gift in the problem the the silver lining of the situation
and to be grateful for it
there's always a positive consequence a side-effect
of a negative situation always
even if it's something serious this is because
when we're faced with challenges with problems in in to order deal with them
were forced to grow that's how we survive
if it doesn't kill you it makes you stronger right it's that tired cliche that we
throw out you know randomly but it's
it's very valid
it applies
now my buddy steve he didn't need much prompting to find the
gift in his problem and his face lit up as he
realized his good fortune he was now free of a dead end job
that had been dragging him down
and he had the opportunity to reevaluate where he was going
and what he wanted to do
he was given a chance to get out of his rut and to do something that inspired
him
so the mental alchemy was almost complete with steve
but not quite
there's one final step though and that's step five
which is to take action you have to get off your butt and
move you want to ensure you capitalize on your new opportunity by moving forward
as quickly as you can
figure out what your next movie is and make it happen
this ensures that you solidify your process for growth and prevents you from
backsliding
into your original pity party
we all know that person who is
clinging onto their sad story
and reliving the past
don't be that person
you have to look forward and to move
so my bro steve
well he was fired up right
he was smiling and laughing and talking about all the things he was gonna do he was
excited he decided he we was going to go back to school and he couldn't wait to go home to
get online and start researching programs to figure out what he needed to do
to get back to studying again because that's really what was firing him up he was
fully embracing this new opportunity that had been provided to him you know and he was
thankful for it
that day steve thought that you know he'd been served up a big stinkin pile of (bleep)
but he was able to turn that into into gold and that is the magic
of mental alchemy
use this process well
use it wisely
it'll serve you
so are those five steps once again step one wallow in it
step to get some perspective on it step three learn from it
step four be grateful for the gift
and step five take action
so there you have it that's all for now guys see you next time until then be yourself love
yourself make the most yourself
... bye for now