Not necessarily talking about physical strength, although that certainly has its merits, we're talking more about emotional and mental strength here today. But 10 ways to be stronger in your life. First thing is focus on what you want. I remember hearing quotes and for some mentors of mine people like John Grinder who co-created neuro-linguistic programming. And when someone once asked John Grinder, "If you were gonna give one piece of advice, just one piece of advice, just one sentence, just one paragraph to help someone make a massive, big, huge, humongous, words, ability to change, something to change in life. One little piece of advice. What would it be?" And he said, "It's simple. I'd get them to focus on what they want," because most of us are really fucking good at focus in what we don't want.
"Well, I don't wanna be a fat bastard. I don't wanna keep attracting trashy people in my life. I don't wanna be poor anymore. I don't wanna keep smoking. I don't wanna keep doing these drugs. I don't wanna be so negative. I don't wanna have all this anxiety. I don't wanna be so sad." We know what we don't want, we could express it and we express it to everyone all the time. But very few of us actually know what we want. If you're a smoker who wants to quit, simply saying I don't wanna smoke anymore is a bit like me saying, don't think of a blue tree inside your mind right now. In order to process that sentence unconsciously and it becomes conscious for most of us, we have to what? See the blue tree. So in order to not focus on the thing that you don't want you have to focus on it. It's a bad strategy. It's a bad equation folks.
So what about, well, instead of I wanna stop smoking. I wanna be smoke-free for the rest of my life and be happy and healthy about it. Instead of I don't wanna be a fat bastard anymore, what about I wanna be lean and sexy and athletic. What about I don't wanna be poor anymore. What about I attract money and abundance to me each and every day in every way.
No 1
Focus on what you want. Not just with your words, but your physiology and how you move, how you think. Focus, think, in Technicolor. Focus on what you fucking want. If it was good enough for the co-inventor of neuro-linguistic programming, Mr. John Grinder, then it's good enough for us. Focus on what you want. Focus on what you want to the absence of everything else.
There's another quote that I've got this from David Shepherds, who originally got this from someone else. It may have been a Huna teacher. I'm gonna butcher this but you'll get the gist of it. And the gist is this. If you imagine there is a scale in front of you, like this scale that you'd see at courts, you know. And imagine on one side is a negative part of the scale and on the other side it's a positive end of the scale and it's balanced in between. So you imagine all through your life you've probably said about all the things you don't want. Felt negatively, felt shitty about yourself and the world. The recent statistics say the average person is about 40 negative for today and about 3,000 to 5,000 positive. So if you imagine those scales, 40,000 negative versus 3,000 to 4,000 positive. They're way out of calibration there.
So most of our scales are up the yazoo, so to speak, because we've been focusing... we've been imagining, we've been thinking and we forgot that we've been thinking, and we've been forgetting that we've been imagining. And then that becomes our reality, it becomes a reality loop. We think it's real. It's not real. It's just you've done it so long that you think it's just happening. You haven't realized that you've greased the groove for many, many years inside your head. So it's a lot easier to go down the negative path then it is the positive path. So, again, back to the scale. Like most people, you know, statistics, 40,000 negative thoughts, 3,000 to 4,000 positive thoughts, that scale is way off balance. So what this...what David Shepherd, when he was quoting someone else would say was, however long you take thinking about something negative, like, you're a loser. You're fat. You'll never change. The world sucks. You suck. So whatever it is, then you've got to think about the positive aspect of that.
So if I think I'm a fat bastard and I'll never lose weight. Let's say that I'm thinking about that for a minute hypothetically. So now I've got to think about the opposite. As soon as I catch myself I've got to think the opposite of that for a minute which is, I'm lean. I'm sexy. I'm the exact way I need to be. And even if I'm not, I'll get there easily and effortlessly in a safe way, with as much energy if not more. With every negative thought, I've got to do the opposite, the counter-attack of the positive. Now after a while, it will get to a point where the weighing scales will no longer be drastically in favor of those negative thoughts. They'll get balanced at some point which is good, but it's not enough. They're balanced. Now they're balanced but they're still competing with one another. We need to counterbalance it on the right side or the positive thoughts.
So we need to take twice as long to think, to ruminate in the positive thoughts, the positive hallucinations, the positive affirmations, in Technicolor, in order for it to get assigned, in order for it to get etched into our very, very DNA, if you will. So it becomes our new normal, our new reality. So focus on what you want to the absence of everything else. Catch yourself having a negative thought, see how long you're having it for, then do the opposite thought, but don't do the opposite thought the same amount of time. Do the opposite thought a little bit longer than a negative. So we get those scales of balance in favor of you on the right side. So, 10 ways to be happy, number one, focus on what you want.
No 2
Focus on one thing at a time. Focus on one thing at a time. Focus on one thing at a time. We are living in a day, we are living in an age where we're multitasking everything, but we don't do anything that well. We're looking at our Instagram, we're on our Facebook, on our Twitters, texting people, we're sending emails, we're talking on the phone, we're sitting around dinner with our family members not really connecting with them or our friends because we're doing 10 million other things and we're not doing them very well. Yet we think, well, we're so pressed for time. We're no more pressed for time than we were 10 years ago, 20 years ago, 30 years ago. Still 24 hours in a day last time I checked. And whether you're the garbage man, and nothing wrong with that, or whether you're the president of the world, you still only have 24 hours. No matter how powerful you become, you're not gonna create any more than 24 hours.
Now, how you spend those 24 hours, well, that's completely up to you and you're completely empowered to do it. But you see, when you focus on many different things, it's almost like having 10 beakers of water that haven't been filled on the table, 10 glasses. And then you get that dispenser of water, if you will, and you start administering water into every cup. Now, you only get paid, you only get a fulfillment when a cup is filled. So if you're taking your time automatically trying to fill up 10 cups at once, it's gonna take forever for any of them to be filled. Doing too much at once. Whereas if you just focus on that one glass and you fill that up, then you realize you get paid for that. You get done for that. You get fulfilled for that. And that starts working in the background. And then you fill up the next cup. Then you get paid for that. You get done for that. You get fulfillment for that. Then you get on to the next cup and it works in the background. It works like momentum.
So even though you've done these cups and there's more to go, you've got that momentum, that positive energy that's gone on your side. If it's a project, you're getting paid for that or that's going to press, whatever it is, because it's out there in the real world not just stuck in your head. Do one thing at a time. Do it really, really well, then move on to the next thing. You only get paid for what's done. You only get paid when that glass is filled. So if you're trying to fill them all at the same time, it'll take forever to fill them up. Get one, fill it up. Then the next one, fill it up. Then the next one, fill it up, and so forth. Stop living in the future. Stop living in the past. Depression usually, and sadness, exist from stuff to happen in the past. Anxiety generally exists in the future. If you know counter-attack, so many people suffer from this nowadays. People come to see me weekly, too much sadness, too much depression, too much fear, too much anxiety.
You know what the antidote is, stay in the now as best as you can. Stay in the now and fill up the fucking glass that you're filling up and don't think about anything else right now. In fact, just focus on that one glass to the absence of everything else. Negative hallucinate the other ones. Fill that one glass, then the next one, then the next one. So 10 ways to be stronger, focus on one thing at a time.
No 3
Do something that scares you. Every day, do something that scares you. Now, I'm not saying you should do something stupid like jump off a balcony without your parachute. I'm not saying you should run into the road and play with oncoming traffic. I'm not saying you should go and antagonize the biggest, meanest, tattooed, bearded guy in the bar and start using very sour language on this guy, and challenge him for a fight. I'm not suggesting you do something stupid. I suggest that you do something that scares you. That might be go and have a conversation for complete stranger. It might be enrolling in your first exercise class. It might be going through an improv comedy course. It might be going to a karaoke night. It might be wearing some more scandalous clothes out there. It might be, I don't know, it could be any number of things.
To do something every day that scares you, that keeps you alive, that keeps everything live and moving. Do something. It doesn't have to be big, but when you start getting used to that, conditioning your mind and your body, that really, you start to realize after a while when you unravel this ball of fear and anxiety, oftentimes in the middle is excitement. They both pretty much have the same physiological effect on the body. We just frame anxiety and fear for bad things and excitement for good things. Now, whenever I'm gonna get in a physical confrontation or fight with somebody, or if I'm gonna go on a rollercoaster, it's the same physical feeling I feel inside the body. But a lot of people enjoy rollercoasters but they don't enjoy fighting. It's the same feeling but they'll have that same feeling. One is excitement one is fear. What's the difference? One is a label.
One is that label of fear, confrontation, don't like it. Rollercoaster is I like it. Go back to the two columns, like dislike. Like on the right, dislike on the left. Same physiological feeling, very, very similar at least but one is excitement, one is fear. So oftentimes, we realize that fear and anxiety, oftentimes, there is excitement there. That when you can rinse out, when you can mine that excitement there, you can literally reframe that whole event. So do something every day that scares you.
No 4
Train. Train every day. Do something physical. Now, whether you're a seasoned pro and you lift weights every day, good on you. It doesn't have to be that way, though. Whether it's just really going for a walk around the block and that's all that you can do, that's okay. Whether it's doing a Zumba class .whether it's doing a mixed martial arts class or Krav Maga class. Whether it's stepping. Whether it's going for a jog. Whether it's going for a run. Whether it's using a kettlebell. Whether it's doing bodyweight calisthenics at home. Whether it's enrolling in a yoga class, a pole dancing class. Whatever it may be, do something physical daily, daily train. Train your body. Train this vessel that you're in. Train it, use it well. Use it well. Take advantage of it, like having an amazing car. Take advantage of that car.
Ride it, be safe with it, but push it its limits at time. Do fun crazy things. Be safe, but do some things that scare you. Train, do something to make your... it's about making your mind stronger, but now it's make your body stronger. Whatever it is, do something every day. Could be pilates, to make your body strong. It could be 5 minutes a day, 10 minutes day. It could be longer if you want, but every day, dedicate to doing something to making your body stronger. What's that? That's one, two, three, four.
No 5
Right now. Ten ways to be stronger, get off sugar. Now, you're gonna say, "Luke, what do you mean by that? Like, don't I have to have carbohydrates to stay alive?" No. Not really. You don't. No, no. You don't have to have carbohydrates to stay alive. It's just the bottom line. You've been lied to, so was I, for many, many years. Carbohydrates don't necessarily give you energy. I fast a lot. I know lots of people that fast and stuff and lots of people do various forms of keto, which is just them ripping off Dr. Atkins diet essentially. I'm not wanting to give that guy any credit. Yeah, you don't need sugar. And what I mean, I'm not saying carbohydrates are bad, I'm talking sugar and I'm talking about a form of junky of sugar myself. I'm talking about the frappuccinos, the donuts, the overindulgence of bread, ice cream, all that stuff.
Now, if you've got it completely under control, your body's exactly where it needs to be, your energy's exactly where it needs to be, you look and feel exactly right, perfect every day, then you probably don't have to follow this one. You're doing great. Then come on this podcast and give my people along with me some advice. But usually, most people I meet, they're addicted to sugar on some way, whether that be physiological, whether you believe it's physiologically addictive or mentally addictive. There's an addiction that's going on right there. It's not good for us. It's not good for me. This is coming from someone who addicted to this shit for about 35 years. Okay? So I have been there. Come off the sugar. You don't need. It will give you highs, it will give you lows.
It's like going back to a bad relationship. You know it's bad but you keep going back because it tastes so good for a while until you realize it's rotten at it's core, and that smell goes up your nose and you realize just to stay away from that horrible stench that's out there. Much like sugar, you don't need it. Come off of it, be more, get rid of that addiction, whether it be mental or physical. You don't need it. So what's that? That's five, 10 ways to be stronger. That was number five.
No 6
Stop doing drugs. Yeah, you heard me. Stop doing drugs. What are drugs like? Alcohol, crack, crystal meth, cocaine, heroin, to name but a few. They could be oxytocin, Oxycotton, oxytocin is the drug, oxytocin is the biochemical, Oxycotton is the drug. Come off the Oxycotton, the painkillers, all of that stuff if you don't need them. If you've become addicted to them and you're taking them just to fall asleep, sleeping pills, all that stuff. No, I'm not saying if you've been asked to take medication from a professional you should come off that, that is not what I'm saying at all. What I'm saying is when people abuse these things and they don't need it and they're not getting any help and under the supervision of a doctor, they come off of these things.
But drugs in general, they don't help you. They're an escape. They're there to prevent you from facing something you wanna face. They're there because you don't have quality connections in your life and you're trying to fill up that hole with a fantasy world full of drugs. They're there because you haven't found other ways to channel your neurology to feel better for no fucking reason other than you're alive and that you're a decent human being. When you get good at doing that and you can get good at doing that because it's just a skill that you can learn to do, you don't need drugs. You don't need them. Come off of them. They just hold you back. Just come off of that shit. Be stronger than the drug and you are stronger than the drug. You don't need it anymore. Come off of drugs.
No 7
Honestly evaluate where you are. Honestly evaluate where you are. Where are you? So, if you imagine you're using your Google Maps, okay, or your GPS system and you wanna travel somewhere. There's simply two pieces of information that that device needs to know in order to chart your course. It needs to know where you wanna go, right? It needs to know where you want to go. So you put in your location, let's say that's Yonge Street Toronto, all right? That's where you wanna go. But it needs to know where you are right now because if it doesn't know where you are right now, it can't give you the correct coordinates because whether you're just down the corner on Queen Street in Toronto or whether you're on Oxford Street in London, England, it's gonna give you two completely different paths on how to get to Yonge Street in Toronto.
So yeah, it's really important to know where you wanna go, but you need to know where you are. You need to honestly evaluate where you are right now. So let's say you want to release some weight and let's say you want to get to 200 pounds. And let's say, but you don't know how much you weigh right now. That's a problem because number one, you might already be 200 pounds or number two, you need to have the appropriate plan in place to be realistically, safely evaluate how long it's gonna take. It's gonna take...it's gonna be two different journeys whether you're 205 pounds, you've got 5 pounds to drop, or if you're 300 pounds, you've got 100 pounds to drop. There's gonna be completely different timetables that you need to be set up.
So if you don't know where you are and you haven't evaluated, you're gonna get frustrated somewhere along that journey at some point because you didn't factor in where you are, and it's gonna take longer because you've got more to travel from. You've got to travel from London to Toronto, rather than Queen Street Toronto to Yonge Street Toronto. So it's very important to know where you are. Very, very important to know where you are. So evaluate where you are and then you can focus on where you need to go. That makes you strong because clarity equals power. When you have clarity in your life, it gives you great power to start self-offering in your life and go where you need to go.
No 8
Go for what you want. Go for what you want in life. Don't go for what other people tell you you should have and you should be satisfied with, you should be okay with it. You know, I grew up in an environment in the 90s essentially, we were told, you know, get married, have a couple of kids, you know, have a nice manual kind of job, be a plumber, be an electrician, be builder. Get a house maybe, pay that mortgage off, you know, five years later or so, if you're lucky. You know, I think of that word luck. And, you know, go and see the folks, the parents, you know, on the Sunday, have Sunday dinner with them. Get drunk, get tanked up on a Friday with your friends and have quite a miserable but codependent relationship with a wife or partner. And be a pretty mediocre parent.
That is the kind of environment that I was brought up in, but that's what most people would go for because most people before them, their parents, my parents, pretty much in many ways did. It's never what I wanted. It's never what I wanted. So don't let other people, including me, tell you what you want. You go for what you want. What drives you? What makes you passionate? What wakes you up? What do you want? Not what don't you want, what do you want? What kinda money do you wanna make in your life? What kinda job do you want to have in your life? How do you wanna contribute to the world in your life? What kinda person do you wanna be? What kinda beliefs, values, virtues, do you want out there in the world? What kinda relationships do you want? What kinda health do you want? What kind of heart rate do you want? What kind of weight do you want? Body fat percentage. What do you want your yearly earnings to be? What do you wanna be remembered for? What do you want your legacy to be? What do you want? And then fucking go for it.
And if you don't know what the first step is, I just gave you the first step, is sit down, determine what you want. And the next step is imagine you already know what you need to do in order to be that person. Then imagine you're that person who's doing what they need to do, to get what they need to get, to be who they need to be, to have their needs met. Just imagine it. Imagine you're acting from that place because it's all in your imagination anyways. You're not perceiving the world as it is, you're perceiving the world through a set of filters that come into your brain. We're all generalizing, deleting, distorting, at all times. The map is not the territory. So imagine things the way you want. Imagine you're that person. Consistently imagine it until it becomes your new default, your new normal, your new automatic programming, hypnosis, and get it done. Go for what you want.
No 9
10 ways to be stronger. And you can also change stronger for it to be more successful in your life. Success and strength I think come hand-in-hand. But number nine is be polarizing. Be polarizing. Don't be beige, as my good friend Steve Miller would say, be black, be white, be polarizing. Make people make a decision about you. Be that person that when you walk in the room, regardless of how you physically look, your size, your stature, your gender, your sexuality, your ethnicity, or how you're dressed, although you can manipulate all of those things. And please, understand, when I say manipulation, I mean it in its rawest form, which is simply to move things. It's your connotation thinking it means something negative when it means in its purest form is simply to move something. Be polarizing. When you walk into that room, people know you're somebody. They don't know who you are or what you do, they just know you're somebody.
You know, regular listeners to the podcast will know I make no mistakes about it. I'm a big wrestling fan. As I sit here right now, to my left, I look at my Rey Mysterio Jr. mask on a mannequin head. I am looking at my bullet Club New Japan Pro Wrestling bag. And I'm sitting next to the WWE heavyweight title from my youth. The winged, the eagle title worn by such legends as Hulk Hogan, the Ultimate Warrior, Bret the Hitman Hart, Shawn Michaels. Be polarizing. There's a wrestler, who is not particularly one of my favorite wrestlers although I respect the hell out of the guy, it's a guy called John Cena. John Cena quite frankly, when all is said and done, may be the most successful wrestler of all time.
Whereas other wrestlers like Hulk Hogan may have carried the company for three, four, five years, had a sabbatical then came back. Stone Cold Steve Austin, the biggest star of all the time, carried the company for about three years then ended up retiring. The Rock, who coincidentally never carried a WWE, such a huge humongous star, that went on to become a huge humongous star in Hollywood, never really had to carry the company. John Cena had to carry the WWE for essentially the last 16 or so years, he's been the number one guy. And John Cena is what we call a baby face. He's supposed to be a good looking guy, good shape. Every guy is supposed to wanna be him, every girl is supposed to want to be with him. But the thing with John Cena is he's polarizing.
Well, half the audience boo the hell out of the guy and half the audience cheer the hell out of the guy. And it's a crazy dichotomy. And in the early days, the management at WWE, World Wrestling Entertainment, were very worried because they were booing a guy that was the heir apparent to the throne, who's supposed to be a good guy. But they booed him, half the audience, usually adult males, usually my demographic, while kids and women would cheer him. But his merchandise would still sell through the roof. And the thing was, he would get a reaction from people. And it's when you get a reaction from people, it doesn't matter if it's good or bad, in something like professional wrestling, they're reacting to you. You're polarizing, you're making them choose a side, black or white. It's when your beige, it's when they don't make a sound, it's when they sit on their hands that you have a problem.
So be polarizing my friends. Some people will love you, some people will hate you. There's lots of people out there that hate me, I've got these narratives that have been out there in the press and by other people trying to dog my name. They have never met me, never had an interaction. They've probably never even listened to one of these podcasts or watched one of my videos, yet they hate me. They hate me. But equally, there's people out there that have interacted with me, have listened to this podcast, have worked with me. And they love me and they know that the work I'm doing is for good. And you know what? I'm okay either way because they're talking about me. I'm out there. I'm polarizing. I'm making people make a choice. You can love me or you can hate me, but you will think about me. That's what you wanna be, make people choose a side. Don't be a pussy, don't sit on the sidelines hoping, wishing for something to happen, go out there, be who you are.
Don't edit it for other people in case you upset these people with a cuss word here, or a cuss word there, or the way that you dress, or how many tattoos that you have. Be polarizing. Don't be beige. Don't try and fit into the background. Don't hide. Don't make yourself smaller so other people can feel bigger. Be polarizing. Be that person that when you walk in the room, before you even open your mouth, they know that's somebody. Be that person.
No 10
The number 10 way to be stronger in your life or to be successful is simply, many people complain but don't do anything about it in life. They complain about everything, oh, I'm too fat. Oh, I can't quit smoking. Oh, I can't find my ideal mate. Oh, I can't get that raise. Can't write that book. Can't do this, that, the other, this, that, and the devil knows what. They complain about everything but they don't do anything about it. Do something, anything. Anything's better than nothing. Go out there and foul, but do something. Don't sit around and complain. You don't have the right to complain to anyone unless you went out there and you did it. You did something about it. Now, if you did something about it and it didn't go the way you want, then you can go find a vested interest...someone, a mentor, to helps guide you, to give you some information so you can do it a little bit better, a little bit more eloquently next time. But you don't have the right to complain to someone if you haven't done anything to change your situation.
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Always Believe,
Luke Michael Howard Ph.D
Clinical Hypnotist
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