What problems have you solved using the Truth-Love-Power framework?

[Mattyyy]

The title says it all. You don't have to be specific at all, be as broad as you want! (However, the more specific you get, the more interesting this post may become. )

So far, I've used TLP to successfully figure out how I want to go about my careers and life, and to solve a few social problems I've had. It's really interesting and kind of amazing - when you look at everything through such clear lenses, the result is even clearer than you originally would have thought possible. The end result is so simplistic yet it makes so much logical sense. Truth and Love seem to get me my answer, and then Power is what I use to make that solution work (although recently, for me, Power and Authority have been overlapping quite a bit.) What areas in your life has TLP worked the best for you? And, if any, what areas has it worked not so great?

In addition, have any of you found a few holes in the method? Any blind spots or things that don't quite 'click' with you in any way?

[Aleksander Krstic]

Originally Posted by Mattyyy

The title says it all.

I thought a lot about life and it brought clarity into my life, which is also one of my most important goals.

Originally Posted by Mattyyy

What areas in your life has TLP worked the best for you? And, if any, what areas has it worked not so great?

I don't understand it completely, so I can't say it really changed some area specifically. Let's just say that it brought more clarity into my life.

Originally Posted by Mattyyy

In addition, have any of you found a few holes in the method? Any blind spots or things that don't quite 'click' with you in any way?

Yeah, the fact I can't quite understand it fully, so it might be difficult to understand for people with low concentration(but that's pretty much for everything, so yeah whatever).

[Angela]

Yes, it would be fun to read about some real-world case studies.

[Mattyyy]

I'll throw out one example from myself - how I used TLP to figure out what I want to do with my life (career).

For the longest time, I've always wanted to be a performer, playing the piano for anybody and everybody I could possibly come in contact with. Hell, I'll still like that now! Performing for other people and arranging new music is something I adore doing; I especially love the reactions I get from people after I'm done playing. Meeting all the people, seeing how ecstatic they were to see me, it all makes it incredibly worthwhile. I just want to rush back up on stage and do it all again one last time.

However, I also love writing. Not nearly as much, but I love to type and write my opinions and share what I know (such as in my blog - link in my signature!) I couldn't imagine giving up this side of me, either.

I could make a decent living via piano playing, especially if I lived in New York City or Los Angeles, and I'd never be out of work. However, the hours are often long, it's a lot of playing, and it doesn't leave you time to do anything else. For example, playing in theaters for Broadway shows isn't something I object to doing, but it's not something I would actively seek out due to the aforementioned reasons. Piano playing would become a slightly better than hand-to-mouth existence. I'd be making money via my talent that I'm absolutely best at, but I'd be miserable. Not a lot of money, not a lot of freedom. No actual performing for people.

I know I could make a decent living blogging; with all the information online, creating a high income online is entirely possible. I love writing, so writing every single new post isn't a chore at all, I adore doing it. There's not much about blogging that I dislike at all, actually, but whenever I focus solely on that, it's not very filling. It feels like a part of me is missing. I get so much joy out of connecting with other people and knowing I'm making a difference, but I feel like my best self is still yet to be achieved. I don't get that feeling when solely piano playing.

I became torn. Do I focus solely on piano playing, knowing that it's going to zap away my free time and become a hand-to-mouth existence? It wouldn't actually be performing at Radio City Music Hall like one of my dreams is, but at least it would be playing, however dull it sometimes gets. Or do I focus solely on blogging, hoping that some of those feelings go away over time? I can see myself as a full time personal development blogger, but five years down the road I can also see myself upset that I didn't really go full force at my piano career. I could get a full time income blogging and have all the free time in the world... which would lead me back to piano playing, which is what I wanted to do in the first place!

Decisions, decisions!

This is where Truth-Love-Power came in. I went slightly backwards, and first used love, then truth, then power:

Love. Love states that you need to connect with what you adore and love. To me, it's both music and writing. It's not necessarily doing one or the other at some points (most times it's music over anything else), but if I'm disconnected from doing one, I'm unhappy. Blocking piano practice and blocking my ability to write is one and the same. When I become blocked from doing one or the other, I become annoyed. After thinking about the concept of love, I realize I have to connect with both of them in some way in the perfect career, to make myself happy. I can't disconnect with one, otherwise I go down a path I don't want for myself. I'll become unhappy.

Truth. Truth states you have to be brutally honest with yourself and your desires. What's the absolute truth of everything you're dealing with, without sugarcoating anything? Essentially, the truth is everything I mentioned above. I had to be brutally honest with what makes me happy, how each career choice makes me feel, what the downsides of each career is. If you need refreshing, scroll back up to reread. I'll be waiting.

This is where I came to my decision: Instead of focusing solely on one or the other, it's best if I used both to create my perfect life. For one, I can start putting my piano works, arrangements, and musical life online to start promoting myself to a larger audience. This would be more effective than all the simple piano jobs in the world. At the same time, I can my skills and knowledge to build a personal development blog to create an online income. I get the very, very best of both worlds! Eventually, I won't have to rely solely on hand-to-mouth, smaller piano jobs to create income, and I'll have total freedom when my website starts pulling in some money. I know I can make that happen if I focus, so I'm excited. A great income blogging can pay for things like rent, food, and so on, and would leave me with free time to pursue the piano jobs that may grow the largest fan base or be most fun, but not necessarily be the most profitable.

I won't have to be the starving artist anymore.

Power. Power states you have the ability to make everything you want happen by the actions you take, the habits you have, and so on. Power here would mean taking the action steps necessary to create the income generating website, creating piano videos for YouTube, recording songs for MySpace, and so on. Power wasn't so much the problem, but knowing exactly what to channel that power in was.

So as you can see... the framework worked brilliantly well for me. I'm extremely happy with the solution I came up with; it's very, very effective for what I'm after, and I feel like at this time it's the very best solution I could have come up with. Of course, I won't know until the future, but as long as I don't let one area slide (such as neglecting piano playing to create the website, or go fully after piano playing and slack off on the website) everything should be absolutely fine.

Right now I'm beginning to realize that my creative self-expression either via piano playing or blog writing is one and the same. It's the act of creating a brand new work, sharing it with an audience, seeing their amazing reactions and how I've influenced them, and then repeating that process over and over again is what I love. It's taking a lot of soul searching and understanding of myself to fully comprehend my feelings, but the path so far has been so, so cool and amazingly interesting. TLP really works!

I don't know if this was necessarily the clearest example, but I hope it helped and was at least somewhat interesting to read. There's a lot of more subtle aspects of the framework that I'm still comprehending, and I probably accidentally claimed a concept in Truth that really belongs in Authority, but I'm pretty sure I have the basics down.

This was a lot of words to type!

[seeker5]

Wow Mattyy, that was an interesting read too! Congrats on using TLP effectively and for sharing how you did so.

Very timely too as I'm figuring out my own career. I'll try to apply the formal TLP process to my situation.

[lasti]

@Mattyyy: Great plans! I have almost the same plans except that I am not a piano player but a songwriter. What helped me a lot with this was Steve's newsletter #10.

[Mattyyy]

@Seeker - When you use TLP, remember to be as honest as you can be in all of the areas. For example, it was (and still is!) somewhat difficult for me to realize I can't make a full time income piano playing and performing quite yet. I definitely know it will be possible as I'll be able to use all of the online publicity and works I've put up as sort of a resume for others to see - 'hey, this guy is amazing at what he does and other people like him!' But in the meantime... I sort of need to eat. I like eating, and I like having a computer and a cell phone and these sorts of things.

@Lasti - Is that the one where Steve explains to get value out in any way that you can? If so, that's what you should totally do. Being a songwriter is a bit easier in the sense that the focus isn't as narrow as what I do, and the market is huge for songwriters. And with the internet, you could probably get a good 10 songs up for people to hear on YouTube, MySpace, etc.; especially if you got prominent YouTube singers to cover a song you wrote. Or, if you wrote original songs for them to sing, so they can give you credit? I'm already doing your job and giving you ideas.

All in all, TLP works wonders, but ironically enough you can't fool the system into telling you something you don't want to hear. If you answer as truthfully as possible, it'll be giving you the correct solutions. You just gotta pick one and see where it takes you.

Right now, after really focusing on my goals and what needs to be done, I'm going to be putting in 75% of my time into my piano stuff online, the rest on the blog. Performing is my life, and I want to make sure that becomes the focus instead of slipping into writing. While I know I love writing, it won't come close to actually being on stage and giving a performance.

I'll make a post in Personal Effectiveness soon enough so this thread isn't derailed. When I do, I'll link to that thread from this thread so you all can find me!

[seeker5]

Mattyyy,

I was thinking, you love piano performing, and you love writing. Why not also combine the two, and write a lot about piano performing? Is it possible to develop an online blog or SBI! site about piano performing both for those who want to get better, and for the layman too?

[sk8joyful]

Originally Posted by Mattyyy

What problems have you solved
using the Truth-Love-Power framework?

Well,
I use the Truth of God/Jesus extravagantly loving me,
so much so that He wants me to joyfully... spend all eternity with Him.

I use the Love He richly blesses me with, to love him back, by loving other people too.

I use the Power He blessed each mind with, to help myself achieve my goals, plus guide other people in achieving their goals as well.

Cheers!

[allen080105]

It helped me see that building my power is where I should be putting my focus on. With persistence you can achieve goals but when it's mixed in with procrastination and succumbing to distractions it can take a ridiculously long time.

That's what happened with piano. I feel like I'm pretty good with piano now but it took so long to get to where I'm at. The biggest problem was that I didn't understand power.

[bluedragon]

For me, the idea of living according to values arose more questions than I can answer. I am living them, now, but I am not employed. I don't work in a huge, complicated organization and I don't know if I could work in one, as long as I want to hold on to Truth, for example.

Did anyone apply this paradigm to a career in politics, or advocacy, human rights, humanitarian aid, etc? Or while working for a huge corporation?

[yuri12]

Fantastic stuff with lots of good thoughts...

[bluedragon]

Originally Posted by yuri12

Fantastic stuff with lots of good thoughts...

Are you referring to the forum and our thoughts? Thank you, in that case And - welcome to the forum!

How do you apply the principles of truth, love and power in your life and what problems have you sold?