What All Super Achievers Have

[flynn]

Deep inside everyone of us there is a knowing that we are capable of so much more than we are achieving, that we are not living our true potential, that a dormant greatness is locked somewhere within, a super self that wants to get out, but doesn’t know how.

For each of us, there is someone in life, or history, that we admire, someone that we can see has actualised their super self, shared their greatness. They inspire us, sometimes they make us fee worst by comparison, but they always make us wonder how did they do it?

They did it and do it, by engaging the most mysterious part of themselves, the part that mostly goes untapped – our super brain. Our super brain is the most recently evolved part of our brain, a part of our primate brain. Specifically it is the frontal lobes. The region responsible for all our higher functions: creative, abstract thought, joy, love, logic, higher reasoning, insight, paranormal encounters, enlightenment, transcendence and all other peak experiences.

In most cases the super achievers that we admire stumbled upon their super selves through happenstance in their lives, luck in other words. Circumstances contriving for them, in such a way that allowed to engage in specific, but consistently repeated activities, that in time developed a natural ability to operate from their super.

Specifically the activity is one that has to make you feel good. The better you feel doing it the more effective it is in activating your frontal lobes. It has to be something that is easy for you to do consistently, something you are passionate about doing, and need to do, to feel fully alive. Some people call it ‘their calling’, others their passion, Joseph Campbell described as “following your bliss”.

When we are children, we naturally engage our super brain. We are full of imaginings, fun and play. We have dreams, a calling, and we are excited and full of confidence that we will realise these aspects of our super self. But, as we grow, all kinds of events and circumstances cause us to lose hope in our dreams, and we settled for less. Gradually we lose our joy of life, and our passions are lived vicariously through the self-actualising achievements of others. In time, our super brain becomes mostly dormant and our sense of our own greatness becomes a gnawing quiet ache.

Most people live and die with the ache. It is one of the tragedies of our human condition. But it is more so, because it is unnecessary, at least at this point in our species history. We now know how to re-activate our super brain, turn on our mind’s power, and actualise our greatest potential.

Following our passion is the natural and probably easiest way to go about turning on our super brain again. When we are entirely engrossed in an activity, we are on super brain “auto-pilot”, and are actually in a meditative state. Of course it might be that you no longer know what your passion is, or even if you do, you don’t know how to get there because your thinking has been operating from the part of your brain that can’t think creatively, the part that makes you to feel hopeless and negative. And of course repetitive thought patterns become self-fulfilling over time, confirming your suspicions that you can’t achieve what you want.

So how do you break out of the cycle and begin to turn on your super brain?

Mystics have known for centuries the power in meditation to do this. And science has caught up. Meditation activates the frontal lobes, and is undoubtedly one of the most powerful techniques for achieving this result. But there are others: prayer, chanting, rhythmic activity…. And albeit more mechanical, there are also tools specifically designed sound and visuals aids that will achieve the same result.

Once the process begins, one’s thinking style slowly begins to change, becoming more positively coloured, hopeful, creative, resourceful and the possibilities for one’s life start to re-emerge. It is not an over night process, just like losing one’s dreams it won’t happen over night. Like everything else that is worth the having, it requires patience and a little trust in the power of a processes occurring over time. But it is wholly achievable, as many are now coming to know.



Flynn

[Dan.Linehan]

Short answer: Persistence.

[Eric Roosevelt]

Originally Posted by Dan.Linehan

Short answer: Persistence.

And courage!

[supertom]

Belief that its their they're RIGHT to be there

[ala ka]

yOU ARE AWESOME!

[Ralph]

A VERY interesting theory, got me thinking. Thanks for sharing it. Just to make sure, can you point me to some scientific evidence? I'd very much appreciate, it'd explain what is it really about myself ... I couldn't have explained it before

I was wondering about it. I knew it couldn't be genetic, people make up by far too many excuses based on genes. Yet, I knew my thinking was clearer than for most of people, I can see connections, ask piercing questions, imagine vividly and do all kinds of superman crap Half-kidding here, but really, I'd love to have an explanation.

[sk8joyful]

Well-written!

And in our sport, we have a Success-alphabet we follow for inspiration.

[dice]

Knowledge of which states and what times of day they work best in.

I can't write at ALL at 10AM, I become illiterate. But when the clock strikes 2, I am basically William Wordsworth's spawn.

Attention/State management (vs. time management) - > Check out Tim Ferriss. He's a package of brill-i-yanteh.

I like those shoes.

[ming]

Clear goals, ambition, zest, commitment, courage, flexibility, discipline, perseverance and sense of humour.

[Keith]

Originally Posted by Dan.Linehan

Short answer: Persistence.

Originally Posted by Eric Roosevelt

And courage!

While this is true, it's also a superficial answer.

These are labels we place on people who act a certain way. But why do they act that way when others in their situation would give up or run away? What exactly is different and how did they get that way?

I suspect it has little to do with engaging a latent 'super brain' and everything to do with conditioned emotional responses. Someone who finds something a "thrilling challenge" (which kicks in their mental goal-seeking "hunter" mechanism) will attack the situation with vigour. Someone who finds the same situation a "crushing defeat" (which kicks in their threat-avoidance "prey" mechanism) will find themselves paralysed and fighting their own "self-sabotage" / "procrastination" behaviours.

Certainly courage and perseverance are muscles which can be exercised and developed, the truly successful tend not to need them because they don't see the situation as one which requires courage in the first place.