Coach LaSota's Formula for Success!!!

There's something strange in the air this morning, feels like it has to do with the way the rest of the day is going to fall, and I don't mean the heat pouring off the Yankee season going down in flames.

With that in mind I need to refocus my energy, which I've needed to do for some time anyway, and what better way to to that than to give you....

Coach LaSota's Formula for Success!!!

As with everything else in life, this is a work in progress, and there's much more to it, but this is a solid start...
So here we go....

Have a clear idea of what's important to you.
The biggest problem that most people have is that they don't really know what it is that they value in life. Then the things that they do, which seem like they're helping, actually pull you away from what it is that your heart really wants. For instance, if the most important thing to you is being a good father, but then you go and gamble away all of the rent money, you're not living in congruence with your values. But how can you live in line with what's important to you if you don't know what that is? Most people don't, then wonder why they're priorities are all screwed.

If you did nothing else, make a list of the 5 things that are most important to you in life and in what order. For me its:

1. Respect
2. Acting Right
3. Stability
4. Family
5. Love

Be Passionate about what you're doing.
Lets face it, anything that's going to work in your life is going to take a lot of doing, long hours, and getting passed road blocks. Its going to take facing tough challenges and putting your balls on the line, usually against some pretty scary odds. If you aren't passionate about whatever it is that you're trying to find find success with there's no way in hell you're going to put in those long hours or push passed those obstacles.

Believe its something worth doing and that you can do it
I've already spoken in great length about the power that even a small amount of belief can have and what can be accomplished because of it in my post "Facebook - The High School Lunch Room, and the power of BELIEF!!!". What is confidence but believing you can do something plus the faith that it will turn out the way you want it to? On the flip side to that, what is hopelessess but losing every sense of that very same thing? And there's nothing more crushing than hopelessness. You can know what you want and be passionate about doing it, but if you don't believe that you CAN do it you'll be stopped in your tracks quicker than a horse with no legs. And a horse with no legs will never be able to run now will it?

In fact, beliefs, whether right or wrong, are the table legs that hold our entire lives above the ground. You have to have this power working for you rather than against you.

Build a concrete plan to get the goal accomplished
I always like to use the analogy of the road trip to the Alamo. Remember the Alamo! Seems like a place everyone should visit, right? How can you remember something if you've never seen it? Not the point of the saying, I know, but whatever. Its a good road trip.

But there are many ways to go to get to the Alamo through this great big country we have here. You can map out a bunch of different things to hit along the way, make it a great trip, and be sure to end up at the Alamo. But what do you suppose would be the chances of getting to the Alamo if you just walked out your door and started wondering around out there? Not very good are they? Sure, you can go in a ton of directions, see and do a lot of things, but your chances of getting lost along the way are enormous.

Yet most of us live our lives like this. We go out there without a map, stumble around for a while and expect we're going to smack right into the Alamo, and how? By sheer luck? Then we get upset or confused when we end up in Cleveland with no money to get back home. At that point you're stuck there.

Do you want to be stuck in a place in life where you never intended to be without knowing how you got there or how to get out? Most of us are. Having a plan prevents this from happening. Or can get you back on the road when you make a wrong turn.

Have the energy to ACT, the mental energy to think clearly, and the positive energy to attract positive results
This is probably the single most important thing on this list, yet amazingly, its the one that's most neglected, and the very first thing that's sacrificed in the name of everything else in life. Let's face it, every single other item here takes a certain amount of energy to do. And if you feel like crap, you're not going to do ANY of it. Hell, even if you could do it anyway, you're not going to feel like it, so it's not going to get done. Or if it does, it'll be a half assed job.

This requires getting enough sleep. Eating right, exercise, and maybe most important, relaxing and spending time with friends and doing things that are fun. What good is any amount of success if you're too busy to feel good. And if you feel good, that's what its all about baby, you're already a success. Feeling good is the name of the game. I've got a good personal trainer if you need help with this here.

Always communicate perfectly what you want and what you're willing and able to do to get it with everyone, ESPECIALLY yourself
Its important that people know where you're coming from and what you want. How many of life's conflicts are over something simple, but come because we just aren't clear on how the other person see's things. The messed up thing about this is that the person we offend the most here is ourselves. You might not realize it, but you're talking to yourself literally every moment of every day, even while you sleep.

When you do this you're actually programming your subconscious mind, and your subconscious is a powerful Jedi, it's the engine that makes everything go. Yet ever single time you tell yourself you can't do something, it rattles around back there until you begin to believe it. Every time you tell yourself you want something that pulls you away from your values, it creates a jumbled mess in your mind that clouds your vision of what's important. As the saying goes, you can lie to me all you want but you can't lie to yourself. Its a sure way to an unhappy life. Except that most of us are pulling the wool over our own eyes without even realizing it.

Just as with the Alamo, if you're not clear on exactly what you want, how is anyone (including yourself) ever going to be able to give it to you?

Build strong connections and relationships with others to help carry you through. Especially with people that make life enjoyable. You're only as good as your support system.

Anthony Robbins always says the quality of your communication is the quality of your life. And according to Dale Carnegie, 85% of success comes from how you communicate with others. It truly is who you know, not what you know, and that goes for the people in every aspect of your life. Sometimes it's the person that gets your foot in the door, gets you that business meeting or job interview. Sometimes its the people that pick you up when you're down or believe in you so much it makes you believe in yourself. At others it people that spread the word for your cause.

I go into this in full detail in the post "The KEY TO SUCCESS IS RIGHT IN HERE.... if you read it... "

Even if you're not ready to take all these steps at once, be sure to take care of that very first one. If you know what's most important to you in life, and have your own 10 commandment, your Knights Code to live by, and you always stick to those guns, then you're ahead of the game already.

Later People!

Join my fanpage John LaSota - Writer

Or our creative team's page The Mad Doser Presents


And if you need a healthy helping hand from a Personal Performance Consultant
Coach LaSota

The KEY TO SUCCESS IS RIGHT IN HERE.... if you read it...

I wish I knew who had left that first anonymous comment on last Friday's post. It seems as if a friend of mine is in pain and I can't see who it is. If I can't see it then there's nothing that I can do to help, and they don't feel they can go to anyone with the issue. That is my failing.

One of the basic premises that the work I'm now getting into is built upon is that we all already know the answers that we're looking for. The problem is that we either can't see it because we're asking ourselves the wrong questions, or we're too scared to answer those questions. Very often all it takes is someone talk to, someone to bounce things off of, and we reach the conclusions on our own. I had witnessed that very thing with a friend of mine just this weekend, to beautiful results.

Isn't it a shame then that so often we can't find anyone to sit and listen long enough, or that we feel comfortable enough with without fear of being judged, to allow us to do that? Most of the time most of us are so in love with our own voices, or the importance we feel by doling out advice, that we're thinking of our answer before we even listen to what they're saying. Take a second right now and consider if you do that. I know you have before; I've caught myself doing it too.

My "job", when it's done right, is to simply do that, sit back and keep my mouth shut and just let you vent. Then, when you hit a roadblock or don't want to push passed a barrier in your thinking I give a little nudge in the right direction. There are a lot of techniques that I had to train in, sure, a lot of different ways to get you there, but ultimately we all have to figure it out for ourselves.

Another of the presuppositions of my field (heh, my field), the very first one, is that communication is constant. Every one of us is literally communicating with everyone around us everyone else every single moment. We just don't know it. Hell, half the time we think we're saying one thing while our body or our energy is saying another. Then every one else in the room is picking up a completely different message based on whatever madness they're afflicted with.

Have you ever complimented someone and they flipped out on you? Then you had to step back and look around with a stupid look on your face and all you could think was WTF? Yeah, I know you have because people are nuts. And I know you've done it to someone because you're nuts too. We all are. Well... that's why.

Another thing we all do, or have done, is to get overly self conscious when we think we've said or done something embarrassing. When we're nervous we swear everyone in the room knows it, like they smell it or something. How the hell do you not see my hands shaking? This exact thing keeps so many of us from saying or doing or trying the things that we really want to do, because of that paranoid sense that "they know!".

The flip side to that is that we also think that everyone should be able to tell when there's something going on with us. And if they don't we grunt, whine, fidget, cross our arms and huff, pout, and all manner of other business to call attention to ourselves. Then if that doesn't work we get angry or hurt. We think we're alone or no one cares about us. Often, if this goes on consistently for long stretches, we get trapped by that, w begin to feel we have no one we can turn to, or we lock it away so tightly that we can't or are afraid to let it out.

And even when they do notice somethings off, what do we do? "Forget it! You should know!" How many times has someone done that to you? How many times have you done it?

We're constantly caught between that rock and that hard place; between the assumption that everyone is noticing our insecurities laid bare before them and the frustration and sensitivities that they don't. But they never do.

And why don't people ever notice? Because 99% of the world is thinking about themselves. And even when we think of others, its in terms of what we want or how it affects us. That's not to talk bad about people, I do it too, and so you if you're honest about it. Its human nature. It's survival instinct. Its also why 1% of the world has most of the money. Which 1% do you suppose that is?

Our only real option then is to come right out and say it. Then, of course, you have the issue I always did, as my dear mother always said, "it's not what you say but how you say it."

Anthony Robbins has made a career on the premise that "The quality of your communication is the quality of your life". And according to Dale Carnegie's "How to win friends and influence people" 15% of success is based on talent; 85% is from how well you talk to and get along with other people. Its not the guy who has the best idea or does the best work, its the one who gets that idea across to other or gets people behind them, to lift them up, that gets to the top of the mountain.

Its those people that raise us up, that believe in us, our support system, that gets us to where we're going. Those are our ambassadors, the ones who spread the word for us, in turn get their people to believe in us too without our having to ask them. That's mostly because they can't help but gush about us.

Here's the irony of it all; you know how I said 99% of the world is always thinking about themselves? If that's true then why would they gush about us? Because the people who drip with excitement most thinking about us are the ones that WE gush over the most... to them!

Of course, the key is that you can't be full of shit. You can't do it geared towards what you're looking to get out of them; people smell bullshit from a mile away. But if you show genuine enthusiasm for someone else and who they are, what they do, then you fill them with a sense of importance. And every time they think of you thereafter they associate you and what you're doing with that same sense of importance. The more you matter, then the more they matter.

I'm famous for rubbing people the wrong way. It happened again just Saturday night, and so I've begun to look back and review all the ways to communicate better. You who read this know my heart better than most, but if you were to meet me in public without having done so would never know that this is how I really am. You would believe the exact opposite of me, that I'm a horrible human being. And that's the challenge facing us all.

You good people have taught me though that its in bearing my soul and making myself completely vulnerable that I show my true strength. But many of you have yet to learn that for yourselves, and fear can trap our souls behind a wall of pain.

Most of us are wrapped up in our own shit, too much to notice yours. But that doesn't mean that we don't care. So please, please, to my anonymous commenter, and everyone else, don't be afraid, come right out and say it. Tell me what's up and free yourself.

Or in the immortal words of Ronald Reagan
"Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!"

Later people!

Unemployment, Shootings in New York City, Labor day and acting right...

Now that Labor Day has passed the summer is officially behind us (though not scientifically speaking until Sept. 23). It's 62 degrees in New York and, of course, raining some more, but what else is new. College Football has started and Notre Dame sucks once again, their season over before it began due to the sort of mistakes that can only be categorized as bad coaching. It was a weekend full of that sort of negative vibe.

What the hell is she doing?

I mean, yeah, that's one big ass tree, but she's been

standing like that staring at it for hours. There's been an

epidemic of people doing whacky nonsense out there.

39 people were shot in New York city over a 2 day span from Noon Saturday until Monday afternoon this labor day weekend. A lot of that may be attributed to the West Indian festivities that kicked off, or at least that's what the papers claimed, apparently this sort of thing happens every year during the West Indian festivities. I don't really pay much mind it, but that's downright disturbing. Most of the shootings were in Brooklyn; most of the shootings happened at parties, or at the hands of people who just left a party. There's no better way to celebrate anything than shooting up a room full of teenagers I tell ya!

I suspect this guy is behind it all.

Just look at him. If that's not a kid toucher, I don't know

what is. Last time I saw him he was trying to capture

the Ambiguously Gay Duo.

This is an old stat back from around 2005 or so, but 44 Americans are murdered every day, and that's not counting other violent crimes, just when they were actually killed. That's compared to 4 soldiers dying per day combined in wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. You can get the figures off the FBI's website if you really want to do the research, but it just goes to show you that it's still not all that safe out there. Just because something bad hasn't happened to you... YET... doesn't mean you're protected in your magic bubble. Especially if you live in Brooklyn. That's not a shot or a crack at Brooklyn, it's just the truth.

Whatever it is that he did,

he was just following orders.

That's what henchmen do.

But don't try to get him to rat

out his boss... he aint talkin...

 I can't imagine that those numbers have gotten any better; if anything they're probably worse. We're not just facing an economic crisis, a depression, we're also facing a crisis of conscience. Somewhere along the line we stopped holding ourselves to higher standards, we stopped enforcing the basic rules of decency out there which holds firm that there are things that are acceptable and things you just don't do. People really just don't know how to act anymore, and that doesn't come out of weekend shootings, those are the end result. The shootings are a result of the little things built up to an explosion, it's talking in movie theatre's, driving in the middle lane all the way to the end of an exit ramp and cutting in on the line of cars doing it the right way, not saying "thank you" when someone holds a door open that's got us here.

Look at this poor woman. She's hunched over in

embarrassment, grabbing her ankle, crying in pain

while he tosses her around in front of a cheering

crowd like its a damn Roman arena.

Can you really blame him though? Just look at that

shirt. You can't pull off pimp without beating your women.

He's going to blame Dr. Venture there up top.

Until we fix the breakdowns in the very fabric of our society and restore that sense of pride in doing the right thing nothing that happens economically will make much of a difference. We'll only destroy it all over again. Greedy people will take advantage because they can get away with it. Animals will continue to act as if might makes right because we prove to them that it's true everyday. Stupid people do stupid things, and desperate people do desperate things, and when you throw millions of stupid desperate people together with no vision of a better way, a better world, a better you and no hope for a better life.... whoa, that's a powder keg sitting on top of 100 year old unstable dynamite, isn't it?

Its good she's not reading in the dark, but

someone should tell he that sitting a foot

in front of a 4 foot tower of ultraviolet light

isn't good for the eyes either. Her eyesight was

perfect until she bought that damn lamp. Dr. Zeus

made her do it. I told you... whacky!

And why would we be desperate? Because not only is the unemployment rate in the U.S. at 9.2% as of this weekend, but the underemployment rate is at 16.7%, thrilling news that also came out of this Labor Day weekend. In case you don't know, the underemployed are those of us that have jobs but don't make enough money at those jobs to pay the bills. The underemployed are the ones working 2 part time jobs at 70+ hours a week just to get by, only to have to do it all over again tomorrow.

Right now 25% of the country can not take care of themselves. Yet adding to that desperation, in our consumer driven materialistic party all the time society, we're still putting all the value on the "Haves" while looking down on the "Have Nots". Worse still... no one has any answers as to how to fix it.

Blame the Chinese, they're behind everything.

Who do you think is funding Dr. Moreau up there?

Outsourcing your devious plots for total global domination

keeps the hands clean and frees up a lot of time for

more important activities like....

KARAOKE!

All of this has even made the likes of self improvement guru Anthony Robbins go on a Labor Day Rant! This is a long video, but you should really listen to what he has to say in it. There were some specific points he made in it, things I've said a lot and got slammed for in the past such as:

"I'm not talking about positive thinking bullshit"
"Everyone wants a piece of you when things are good. When you're down the people who are full of it disappear and you find out who your real friends are."
"You need a breakthrough"

He says these things straight out in this clip, and it points out why, of all of these people cropping up doing what he does, that he's still the best. What he acknowledges that the "positive thinking" crowd refuses to is that even if you do everything right you still need opportunities, you still need something to happen, and for many of us, those breakthroughs just don't come, and they certainly haven't or aren't coming any time soon.

And there it is, the evidence, the crux of the plan....

they're going to replace all of our women with

cardboard cutouts.

If you want companionship you'll have to go through

them now. Cardboard cutouts are just fine. You can even

talk to them a bit. Its when they start answering back

that you have to worry.

Robbins hits on the same rock wall that I've been smashing myself against for the better part of my lifetime, and certainly over the past few years, and that's that no matter how hard we try to improve our situation, there are times that nothing you do can change it and there's really nothing that you can do about it. This follows right along the path of Eastern philosophy when they say that life has pain, all we can do is decide how we feel about it, how we let it affect us. As Anthony Robbins says, when it really hits the fan and everything is out of our control, all we can do is focus on the things that we CAN do something about. Often the only thing that is is how we think or how we act.

They're letting us keep one or two of the ladies

around, just in case we need a little something extra....

like two front teeth... or are those the bottom teeth?

And as if the Universe needed to hammer that point home, that sometimes things just don't go your way and there's nothing that you can do about it but accept the situation and let go of the frustrations caused by fighting a fight you just can't win and stop fighting just for the sake of fighting... I got word Friday night that Jess, my ex that left me in the middle of the night, is now engaged to be married.

It was an odd feel that washed over me; I wasn't upset at all. Quite the contrary, I'm actually about as happy for her as I can be. Whatever happened, I take the blame for it; I could have loved her a whole lot better than I did, and marriage was what she always wanted. Hopefully she'll be able to squeeze out a kid or two too. I gained a large sense of relief because I couldn't give her what she wanted, but she didn't lose out on it because she wasted time with me.

Of course, ever since it's seemed like the whole world has stopped. You can't help but think in these situations "what about me?", and I've done my share of that. I've accomplished so much since she left, but every bit of it has felt completely empty because I've had no one to share it with (another thing Robbins mentions often), and nothing I've done has done anything to change that.

But never fear... These guys are on the case.

Have you ever seen a sight that's filled you with

a greater sense that all will be well.

No matter how heinous the plot devised by Dr. Evil...

These guys will save us!

For everything that's happened over the past couple of years, all the hard work that I've done, all the life lessons learned, all the goals knocked off the list, I find myself right back in the same exact situation I fought so hard and did all of those things to get out of 5 years ago and more. And the people that I carried with me all that time, the ones I've been scarred by, have all moved on to other lives and seemingly left me behind, no longer even a dot in their rearview.

Hearing of the engagement took all the fight I had left out of me. Not in a bad way, but in that way you only find through acceptance. This is what it is; this is life. Maybe not for others, but this is what life is for me. And so it's time to stop fighting for all those things out there, focus on the few things you can actually do something about, and try to enjoy whatever it is that does come to you.

And we'll all live happily ever after...

THE END!

I like myself a lot, even if very few others do. I just don't like the situation I'm in, and no matter how hard I've tried I can't do anything to change it. I wonder how many of us have said the very same thing, felt that very same way. But being depressed about it doesn't work either. How does that make anything better?

Instead I said "Fuck it", the 2 most powerful words in the English dictionary as the best teacher I ever had, John D. Vasques, said often. I spent Labor Day weekend watching 3 kick ass Phish concerts and eating Barbecue with The Man and caught my favorite Elvis flik.

And there was much rejoicing.

So what really is the point then in today's ramble if it's not to say how bad things are and we're all screwed? It's this... even when nothing's working for you you can still always decide how you feel about it. Work on being a better you, even if that means saying "to hell with it" and having yourself a good time. Sometimes it's all you can do.

Later People! 

Join my fanpage John LaSota - Writer
Or our creative team's page The Mad Doser Presents

And if you need a healthy helping hand from a Personal Performance Consultant
Coach LaSota

 

I'm angry this morning... And a parade of clowns...

And I couldn't say why.

All I know is that I dreamt last night that I finally spent the night with the woman of my dreams, and when I woke up this morning it was 45 minutes late and she wasn't there, but in her place was this indescribable rage

I don't know if its better or worse to know exactly who that person is for you, especially since if you ever actually got with them they wouldn't be the person of your dreams, but your reality. It's almost a never ending kick in the ass. But then, Anthony Robbins used that energy to become what we know of him today. He lived next door to his dream girl, had to watch as she ran off banging one guy after another, guys with money that he didn't have; he was broke.

But that's not it.

Have you ever felt as if you we on a small boat with no sail or oars in the middle of a dead lake, nothing's moving anywhere and nothing you're doing can change that? That's a metaphor for life, of course. That's usually when Jason pops out and drags you under

But this screaming from this anger, whatever it is, wherever it comes from, letting it out, at the end of the day amounts to little more than howling at the moon

Since acting out in that sort of way really gets nothing done except alienate every one you know though, and makes you feel like a total jackass, you might as well be howling at the moon in a clown suit

Do you see what that kind of behavior gets you? And I've long since decided that if I was going to get caught out there having anything to do with clowns, it was going to be this one

Maybe if I'd been dreaming of her instead I'd have woken up with a smile on my face, grabbing my honker! Officially, this in now my favorite clown of all time. If life is just a circus anyway, how do I get into hers?

Times like this require a change in energy, you have to do your best to look at the things you appreciate in your life. For instance, the other night it only cost me $1 to be reminded how much Nicholas Cage sucks

Yeah, Season of the Witch was total horsesh.... hey, I'm trying to stop cursing here..... but then, how the hell did I not see that coming, right?

Thank God for real life Superheroes like Master Legend! You really need to see this. Seriously. You do.

I was first introduced to Master Legend in the documentary Superheroes. There are real life superheroes out there, they walk amongst us. And if you haven't yet had the pleasure, I highly recommend this flik. There are no words to accurately describe it. And I'm almost positive that a certain lady I know parties with the Brooklyn chapter of heroes from time to time. This feeling in my bones almost guarantees it.

And how do I forget my love for The Wild and Wonderful Whites of West Virginia? IMPOSSIBLE!!!
Honestly, I tried to sit through this, tried, almost had someone tie me down so I could, but I couldn't get through even 3 minutes of it. It was because they were too ugly. Seriously, that's what did it. But I promise you one day.... one day....

Though I should feel a kinship with these folks. You see, I'm just New York City White Trash, what we call SHANTY! That's a shanty up above. That could be me on that porch. In Broad Channel. That's precisely how I know how nasty it is to surf in the Rockaways. You see, you can't be happy until you accept who you are, embrace it. And now that I have, in the few short moments that it took me to write this, my anger is gone.

And now, my spirits lifted, my soul is free to pursue that woman of my dreams.

In the immortal words of my hero, my Captain... Master Legend....

"When a man's been injured as many times as I have.... he deserves a beer!"

Oh Captain, my Captain. I think I'll go get one.

Later People.