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How to get Everything and More

Effortless Achievement

to the other one; children leave it up to their parents. It's your life…can you really afford to leave your future up to someone else?

When it comes to designing the future, most people limit themselves by "either/or" instead of everything-and-more thinking. Single people tend to think that they can either have a relationship or their independence, not a relationship AND independence. Some married couples think they can have love or passion, not love AND passion. Some people think that they can have wealth or ethics, not wealth achieved ethically. Some companies think they can make profits or honor ecology, not profits AND honor ecology.

People inhibit themselves from getting everything-and-more by thinking they have to:

1. Give Up something more important (e.g., freedom, independence, ethics, ecology)
2. Put Up with something undesirable (e.g., their partner's wishes, unethical behavior, or toxic waste)
3. Live Up to something BEFORE they can get what they want. This cause-effect struggle usually follows the form: "If only…, then I could…".

Why do people avoid everything-and-more thinking? Perhaps because it seems to:

1. Be selfish
2. Take longer than the "short cut"
3. Be something they don't deserve

To design a future that includes everything and more, you will want to consider:

1. WBCG - What's best for the common good? Family, company, nation, environment, planet?
2. WIIFM - What's in it for me?
3. WATC - What are the consequences…and how can I adjust my dream of the future to eliminate them?

Ecology: On a recent airline flight, I read an article about a company that had become 100% recycling: no waste leaves any of their three plants. I can't remember if I read it in the Delta Airlines magazine or USA Today.

Relationships: Working with one of the professional trainers I know, I suggested that she expand her relationship desire to include one that would give her more freedom and independence than she has alone. She found this hard to imagine, but she could see that it was possible.

Wealth: My wife came from a family belief that money could only be obtained by "getting your hands dirty." Only after she came to see that it's possible to obtain wealth by ethical choices did she begin to accumulate some investments.

I often catch myself in the bind of either/or thinking. When I do, I take some time to ask myself "how can I achieve both and more?" This invariably opens up my thinking and previously invisible opportunities become clear and available. What once seemed difficult becomes easier and faster.

So how have you inhibited your success and the success of those around you by either/or thinking? How can you easily adjust your thinking now to achieve everything and more?

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