Creating Success Part 3 - Applying Knowledge

Knowledge must be attained before attempting to create techniques to apply them. This is an internal process and development.

This is not the most common way of going about it. Usually people jump into trying techniques with the belief that by using them they will become successful. The outcome is only partially successful at best and temporary. If it does produce positive results, it still lacks any feeling of success. This is the reason that so many people that have made a lot of money lead depressed lives.

When we create knowledge first, we change the dynamics totally. We become successful internally, which then magnetically draws us to the best techniques and solutions. We are attracted to and attract what we are supposed to be doing. We are passionate and attract those things that sustain and enhance our passion. Our lives become totally transformed because we attract what we are. Then the results of our efforts make us successful people and not just people who can do a few things well.

When we apply knowledge we engage the external. This creates an active connection between our inner and outer realities. We have developed a constant contact with knowledge and extend it to the world around us. We use the absolutely essential skill of concentration to maintain this awareness.

Success is a biological imperative dictated by the spiritual element deep inside each of us. Without realizing the process, we are compelled to search for our true nature, which is perfection. The exact meaning varies from person to person, but the goal is the same. We intuitively know that there is something more, something great inside of us. By using concentration, we can penetrate to our true nature and make it a part of our awareness. You can call it spirit, life force, chi, motivation or any other term you are comfortable with, but it is the same energy that sustains all life and gives momentum to our search for success, happiness and love.

Knowledge

This is what you get when you attract all possible information about the subject or task at hand and understand its meaning. The meaning part is something the universe presents to us as a gift when we learn to concentrate the mind. We see all the parts and the meaning “dawns” on us.

Focused concentration activates inspiration! A direct link with the universe opens up and universal intelligence flow in.

The 3 critical skills of Creating Knowledge are:

Concentration + Passion + Sustained Effort

1. Concentration

It enables us to look with great clarity at the task at hand without being distracted. We can examine something from every aspect and look at every detail. When we learn concentration we have the ability to focus on our own thoughts, desires and reactions. We can then be selective in the way we think and act. In this way we begin to have control and decide what we want and don’t want.

2. Passion

Passion is the energy we need to stay focused. It’s a total body sensation. We feel excited, we’re energized. It is much easier to stay focused if we are passionate about what we are doing.

3. Sustained Effort

Sustained effort is what makes us great at concentrating. It’s a skill that gets better with use. The longer we can sustain it, the more focused we become.

Applying Knowledge

We take knowledge and direct it.

The ability to apply knowledge depends on our level of concentration. Any amount of concentration will enable us to do things. Training ourselves will enable us to do things well and prevent us from making mistakes. Our personal relationships will benefit from the ability to be more aware of the wants and needs of those around us.

When we have knowledge, we connect to the most efficient techniques and methods. We determine what we want to accomplish, study it, learn what we don’t know and then put it to use. We are in control. We are not just responding to what life puts in our path. We know what we need and find out what it will take to achieve it. Then we do it until it is achieved.

Once we have reached this stage, we have or can easily get the information we need to solve problems. Concentration enables us to be very selective and discriminating in the information we use. The result is always good. We feel good about ourselves and this encourages us to try new things and energizes us more and more each time we do.

Our intuition at this stage has been activated and we get hunches. They turn out to be true and we’re elated. We trust it more and more and we’re energized even further. Once this process gains traction, it is unstoppable. We know what we know and people can’t talk us out of it. We have proof. Our energy level has increased because we are paying more attention to things that turn us on. We’re having a great day!

The most successful people are the ones who can focus completely on what they love. They have total absorption with white-hot concentration combined with the next critical element of applying knowledge and creating success; love.

When we have the feeling of passion, connection, of doing the right thing, it really is the beginning stage of love. If we do it long enough, we discover it is very much like being in a personal love affair. It has all of the sensations and emotions of being in love with a person. We feel all the care and tenderness that we might share with that person and want only the best for them. We want to care for them and be with them always. This is exactly what it feels like to love what we do with that white-hot passion. We don’t care about the outcome; we just want to do what we love. And you know that what we do will be successful.

We started out thinking that we were just doing something pleasing. We discover that it was the beginning of a love affair as deep as any personal relationship. We have opened our hearts.

Our hearts are the door to the Universe. On a personal and cosmic level this is how we connect. This is the sense organ that enables us to feel other people and the world around us. It is also the gateway for people and the universe to connect with us.

All of our feeling, all good comes through the heart. All the things that enrich, sustain and uplift come through the heart. Everything that makes us feel good and alive comes through the heart. The language of the Universe is Love.

When we use our concentration skills with love, we have unlimited energy and divine wisdom at our disposal. This is because what we create through the heart returns to us magnified. By opening our heart we allow wisdom to enter along with all the energy we need. We will never get tired of doing what we love.

Sustaining this in all our activities will produce personal wisdom. When we align ourselves with cosmic intention, we have all the power, energy and resources to Create Success.

CREATING SUCCESS

Creating success starts with having and using the best information to create knowledge. Once we develop the skill of using concentration, we begin to do successful things. Once we learn how to use white-hot concentration with things we love, we begin to be successful. Our connection to the universe through our hearts gives us energy, intuition, inspiration and wisdom.

We are doing what we are supposed to be doing and truly love. We are inspired and have unlimited energy to sustain it. Our understanding and choices are good and produce good results. We live at peace and harmony. All our needs are taken care of, we can have whatever we want.

We are now living success. We are success.

Ron Pettell 2011-2018

Creating Success Part 2 - Knowledge

In Part 1, I described the importance of high value information as the foundation of success.

When you are after good information, it takes more effort. There is more of a process in thinking and evaluating the sources and material. Still, this can be a semi-passive involvement where you are just searching for and collecting bits of information. Storing it away like a squirrel for later use.

There is some effort involved in reaching out to find and get it, but there doesn't have to be much internal involvement at this stage. Things change when you're ready to turn information into knowledge.

To create knowledge out of information, you have to use more of yourself. You have to stir the pot of awareness with your internal energy. This is what you feel when you are excited about something and really into it. This is passion.

This is the second secret of creating success. Passionate Involvement.

This internal energy, your passion for what you love to do, is responsible for focusing your attention and extending your awareness sufficiently to enable you to assemble knowledge out of information.

You stay engaged with your focus and you have sufficient energy to do this for an extended period. Think of Albert Einstein.

So, the next secret of creating success is concentration.

You link your passionate involvement with unwavering concentration.

The application of concentrated awareness results in cognition. This fancy word means understanding. You understand what you are looking at without having to ask someone else. Imagine that!

The act of concentrating the mind on one thing has extraordinary affects. In modern quantum physics it is well understood that you can't take the observer out of the equation. The very act of looking changes the outcome. The power of the mind has an affect when it is focused on something.

At the next level of concentrated awareness, the alchemical process of integration begins. Now pay attention:

This is when the Law of Attraction starts to work.....

Do you understand? Things begin to flow to you, instead of away from you.

This is called integration. It means bringing things together.

The opposite is differentiation, which means to break apart. This is the state of our minds normally. We split and break-up everything we look at. Everything we see is separate from everything else. Everything is moving away and getting harder to reach. Nothing is within our grasp... All we see are the parts, never the whole. That's differentiation.

Integration, which comes naturally from concentrated awareness, stops and reverses the flow of everything away from us. We begin to see things starting to get better. We're not as unhappy, we're even noticing that all of our luck isn't bad. Wow, maybe there's hope!

This process of integration, if continued, brings all the elements together to form a more complete picture. A mosaic of all the bits of information we have stored on any particular subject.

When magic has stitched together all of the pieces into a whole for us, we have a puzzle turned into a beautiful picture. Let me be clear, this is real magic. This is the real law of attraction.

So, knowledge is attracted. You see, knowledge is not about being an expert in one subject, it is about knowing that subject with all its relationships. All of the things that it affects and are effected by it.

You are an expert when you can predict what will happen under any situation. Experts are highly prized for this ability.

Knowledge is not possible without concentration. What separates people who recite information from those who are experts, is concentration. The ability to focus on one thing to the exclusion of all else.

That focus can be on one object or idea. To have knowledge about something means to have many information streams that converge on the center, which is an object or subject you want to know about. This all-at-once characteristic comes in small steps. The more you use it, the more use-full it is. However, at every stage you can benefit from the effort.

You can get great benefit from just a little, and in fact most things that take up our time in everyday life don't really require a lot of concentration. You can start where you are and develop it by practice. In time it will become real for you.

The one crucial thing that you MUST do is start trusting what you see. A sign of the beginning of knowledge is the awareness that some of the things you see aren’t obvious to your friends and family. Luckily, you can explain it to them.

When you reach the point in your life when you are really motivated to succeed, your passion can be channeled by your concentration to begin the integration process. You stop the leaks in the boat and start attracting knowledge.

Perhaps it has occurred to you that this was exactly what napoleon Hill was talking about in his book titles The Law of Success. Precisely!

This is how the Law of Success (Attraction) begins. It's activated with your mind!

Now you can begin to accumulate the knowledge which will become the tools you use to transform your world into what you deeply and passionately desire.

Part 3 of the Creating Success Trilogy will be on Transforming Knowledge into the Tools Used For Creating Success.

Ron Pettell 2011-2018

Creating Success Part 1 - Information

In this first part of the Creating Success Trilogy, I develop the ground floor of success. The basis of Success is Information.

If you think about it, information is what enables us to function in the everyday world, no matter where, or when. From birth we are handed huge volumes of information to consume and integrate into our thought patterns. The human child goes through 15 to 20 years of absorbing information to be able to function as adults in our complex society. 

Our access to information determines what kind of life we have and how much wealth we accumulate. Kids in rich families don’t get the same information as kids in poor families. They’re taught different things and to think in different ways than poor kids. The information we have access to determines our expectations and affects our choices. The information we are exposed to even affects what questions we ask and predetermines the answers.

The reason that there are so many unhappy people in the world is because they know that something is wrong but they don’t know what it is. They can’t define the problem or the solution. The quality of information available to the average (non-affluent) person is limited, narrow, obsolete, opinionated hearsay. 

The daily conversation of the working class is filled with one-liners from the most popular sitcoms. Social standing is dependent on the advanced art of the best comeback to witty statements. In this environment nothing is accurate or original. You don’t get points for originality. This is where the problem starts. 

Everybody is in the same boat, and it’s leaking. The average person can’t step out of their world temporarily and look at it objectively. They keep getting the same information presented in the same way which gives the same answers. I believe it’s called a treadmill.

It’s quite amazing to me that there is so much information available to anyone with a computer and a connection to the internet. Before the internet era, getting information meant having access to libraries. The elite university libraries were where the really neat books were. Of course access was limited to upper class kids. The rest didn’t even know those books existed.

Now, we have a vastly different problem. There is so much information available that we’re totally overwhelmed. “There just isn’t enough time, and I have people I need to text.” “So, how do I know what’s important anyway”? “Is it going to make me popular”? “Will it help me get the right job”? 

People have been trained to accept information “bursts”. They don’t seek information, they’re hit with it, sometimes with consent and sometimes not.

So, the real value of information is not comprehended. The simple truth is that Information tells us about the nature of anything we care to look at. What it looks like, how it functions, what qualities it possesses, how it fits in with everything else, what it affects and how it is effected. It also enables us to look at the very abstract idea of meaning. 

What does what I am looking at “mean”. Meaning is the hidden gem in information. Meaning is what elevates and transforms information into knowledge.

The more competent the source of the information, the more we can trust the picture the information is revealing to us. Accurate information in problem solving produces positive results. Failure to use accurate information usually brings negative or disastrous results. And here is the point of separation between the upbringing of rich and poor kids. 

The information shared in daily contact between rich parents and their kids is filled with information about being successful. How you talk, what you wear, what you do, how you recognize business opportunities, how you make money, how you use it, how you relate to those you hire. Years of exposure to this eventually build a world view ideally suited to being successful and wealthy. The total information/belief system is complete.

Contrast this with the upbringing of the poor (economically challenged). Visualize the dinner table (or couch) of a poor family. The information shared is about not being able to pay which bill this week, intermingled with comments about something stupid on the TV. “And you had better graduate so you can get a good job”. They’re not easy to find these days”.” Look what they’ve done to this country”. “All my buddies say we’re in for bad times, I don’t know what we’re going to do”! ”I’m just too old”.

The information available to these two groups couldn’t be farther apart. The rich group can’t imagine what the problem is? “If they’re poor, it’s their own fault”. The poor group can’t imagine why the rich treat them so badly. “Can’t they see what we’re going through? They're making life hard for us!”

What separates the rich from the poor is what separates the successful from the unsuccessful. Accurate, complete, relevant, timely, meaningful Information. No matter what you are trying to do, then you owe it to yourself to use good information. 

Start with a conscious effort to see how good the information is you normally rely on. Develop the habit of accepting only the best information upon which to base your views and decisions. Don’t be influenced to accept inferior information by those around you. This step is the critical one. If you aren’t already doing this, then begin now.

When you are trying to solve a problem, define what you are looking for to the best of your ability. Then find the sources that contain the appropriate kind of information. Sources tend to specialize. Develop a method for analyzing the quality of information. 

One simple method involves posing the same question to multiple similar locations. Then compare the answers to get a sense of the quality. Pick the best one and use it. Academic sources can be useful for certain kinds of information because they tend to be more accurate and rigorous in their citations. They also have access to the latest research. Their information is shared more readily than with proprietary private research.

The information that you use determines your world view, which determines the options you have in life. If you are unsatisfied with your life, look at your bottom line to find the source of the problem and the solution.

The second part of the Creating Success Trilogy will explore Knowledge.

Ron Pettell 2011-2018

One Tool That Will Double Your Creativity in Half the Time

I've been noticing how creativity, passion and time management are related.

A lot of things we do as entrepreneurs seems to suck the creativity out of us because they take too long or the method is not enjoyable. We have to find a better ways to do things.

With the vast amount of things that I have to do during the day, the mindset and space I need to be creative is pushed into the future even when I think I'm managing my time effectively.

That's why I get excited when I discover a tool or technique that shrinks a bloated process into a sleek one.

For example, I write and create videos to communicate and explain my ideas. When I do research to identify what people are interested in, I collect nuggets of information, images, data, graphs, spreadsheets, and many other snippets that I have to assemble and store in a useful way. If i do it right, it will enhance my ability to create a clear story that people will find useful and want to read.

After doing a number of projects, the volume of stored information is staggering and is starting to feel like a library basement. By that, I mean that everything is categorized according to subject matter because how else are you going to find it?

Unfortunately, this doesn't make me "feel creative" and the whole process of writing just takes too long....

Now maybe I'm a little slow is grasping things that are right in front of me, but I can blame it on being focused on "more important things". I'm talking about something that's been in my computer all along without me realizing the fabulous tool for what it's worth. Perhaps everyone else but me knows about it and has already been using it for a while. I wonder...

To make a long story short, I'm talking about a piece of software which has had a major impact on my time management and creative writing process. It actually lets me store and organize my material in the same way I think about it. I guess you could call it relational. I can see how information is related. I can easily picture how the information flows together to create a story.

So, after the buildup, the software that I've "discovered" is called Microsoft OneNote. I can put text, pictures, flowcharts, notations, pictures, videos and embed any type of information to create a "creative brainstorm" environment for my projects. It makes it nice because I can collect all my information in one place so I don't misplace or forget about something.

The way it's set up and the way I interact with it just feels creative to me and keeps my passion alive. For a writer or anyone doing creative things, this is a big help.