Change Your Paradigm, Change Your Life, by Bob Proctor

Hey everyone!

I’ve got a brand new YouTube video up right now, and it’s all about OBSESSION.

Specifically, it’s about never apologizing for being obsessed with chasing a dream.

You don’t have to “achieve” anything in life to be a valuable, once-in-a-universe human being, but in the video, I argue that being obsessed with something meaningful just makes your life…better.

At least, being obsessed with reading and lifting and creating has done that for me in my own life.

Anyway, I hope you enjoy the video!

Tonight, I’m also sharing my complete breakdown of Bob Proctor’s book, Change Your Paradigm, Change Your Life.

Totally free, and ready for you to read right now.

It’s about 9,200 words covering the key ideas and takeaways, and you can finish reading my breakdown in about 35 minutes.

Your “paradigm” is your mental programming that keeps you stuck in old patterns of behavior.

It’s that little voice deep inside your own mind that tries to tell you, “I don’t deserve this, I’m not good enough.”

You can re-program yourself over time (it’s a longer process than some people want you to believe!), and if you want to break through that ceiling that’s been holding you back from reaching your true potential, this is the book for you.

You can read the full breakdown here, but I’ll give you a little preview in this email so you can decide whether to check it out.

Again, totally free.

I should actually say “free for right NOW,” because it’s going back behind the paywall very shortly.

Then it’s just for members only at the Stairway to Wisdom. 

Speaking from a business and marketing perspective, I like to “hook” people with the free stuff and then maybe, if you like what you get for free, you’ll convert to a paid membership.

That’s my secret plan! Muah-ha-ha!

Alright, maybe it’s my not-so-secret plan. But there’s some pretty valuable wisdom to be found in this book, that’s for sure!

So, let’s get into Change Your Paradigm, Change Your Life!

This Book is For:

*People who are looking to make a big change in their circumstances and who are willing to take complete ownership of their future in order to make that happen.

*Anyone who's been frustrated by repeated failed attempts to change their lives in the past, and who keeps getting caught up in cycles of backsliding and regressing to their old, ineffective, self-destructive habits.

*Seekers who are intensely interested in tapping into the full power of both their conscious and subconscious minds in order to actualize their latent creativity.

*Everyone who holds a strong, clear vision in their minds of what they want to achieve and who they want to become, and who are willing to do whatever it takes to make that vision a reality.

Summary:

If you want to have something you've never had before, you have to do something you've never done before.

Growth happens in the extremes, near the limits, never from the safety of the sidelines. The trouble is, however, that when we do try to break free of our perceived limitations, when we make a different choice, our brain actively resists this change in an effort to maintain comfort and stability.

Positive change is often uncomfortable, and I've just never found a way to get around that. Anyone who tells you otherwise? Proceed with caution.

Our prior programming keeps us stuck in patterns that don't serve us anymore - in our old paradigms, as Bob Proctor puts it - and his book is all about giving you a fighting chance to shed these limiting beliefs and stimulate real, lasting change.

If only it were that easy.

The truth is that we each face enormous external and internal pressure to remain the same. Pressure in the form of societal expectations, the downward pull of "cultural gravity" and the people we spend time with, the demands of our parents and family members, and even unspoken, unconscious beliefs passed down from generation to generation.

These beliefs tell us that "people like us" don't start businesses or earn more money than we've made until now. They tell us that we're stuck with the bodies we have and in the shape they're in now, and that the only type of relationship we can have are the toxic ones in which we're consistently unhappy and underappreciated.

It doesn't have to be that way.

We can change our paradigm, and thus, change our lives.

Now, a valid criticism of teachers like Bob Proctor is that they make it all sound so easy. And indeed, I'm generally wary of anyone who uses words like "manifesting" and "abundance" unironically.

It's also fair to say that sweeping, unequivocal statements like "Anyone can become wealthy!" attract more buyers of self-help programs than realistic, measured statements like, "With enough intelligent effort, and over a long enough period of time, it's possible that you'll be much better off than you are now." The former sells books and tickets and courses, and the latter, although it's closer to the truth, just don't make for good TV.

So it's best to take some of Proctor's claims with a cautious grain of salt, but the underlying message of his work is an important one:

When we want to make a big change in our lives - when we're setting out to do something extraordinary - our habitual, ordinary mental programming will try to subconsciously slow us down.

It's not comfortable to take sustained, massive action over a timespan of years and years to build a profitable business, to nurture deep, healthy relationships with people who value us unconditionally, or to make significant changes to our physiology by undertaking hard, exhausting, physical action.

It's not comfortable to make these kinds of changes, but it's possible, and in order to do that, we each need to constantly and consistently reinforce ourselves with the mental images of what and who we're becoming. We need to gather evidence for our new, desired state, and we have to keep doing that for as long as it takes for our subconscious mental programming to catch up and admit that yes, this is who we are. This is what we deserve.

Notice how the above paragraph is a lot different than, "Repeat these positive affirmations in the mirror each morning until you're driving a Rolls!"

What we're really doing when we're changing our paradigm is that we're raising our standards in life. Actually, you can think of your paradigm as like an internal thermostat that's always keeping track of what you "deserve" in life.

This is extremely important to understand:

The external conditions of your life will rise and fall in accordance with the level your internal thermostat is set to. It's literally impossible to live life at Level 100 when your thermostat is set to 75. You need to raise your standards and refuse to settle for anything less than a Level 100 Life.

That being said, once you do set your thermostat to, say, Level 85, the mental forces of anxiety, worry, self-loathing, imposter syndrome, etc. will try to drag it back down to 75. Honestly, it takes work - strong, consistent effort - to raise your thermostat back up to 76, and then to 77, and beyond, and it's definitely not easy to do. Most people fail.

That much is obvious. But what I will say is that the effort will always be worth it, and the results of changing your paradigm - raising your standards, setting your thermostat higher and higher - tend to last a long time, perhaps even forever. If you quit and never try again, though, that will last forever too.

Key Ideas:

#1: You’re Working with an Enormous Power

Everything you've ever been a part of in your entire life - all your happiest moments, your greatest victories, your most tragic losses, your most surprising life events - have taken place entirely within your own mind.

Where else could they have been experienced?

Your mind encompasses literally your entire experience of life and the universe, and you hold the awesome power of consciously directing this force toward making your life into everything it could be.

This creative power that you possess is entirely yours, and you have a tremendous amount of control over what inputs you allow to influence your mind, and also the conscious goals toward which you direct this powerful energy. You are working with an enormous power, and thus, you have an enormous responsibility.

As I've written about in my breakdown of Million Dollar Habits, by Brian Tracy:

There are also vast, undiscovered depths that make up your subconscious mind, and most people don't even spend the time to consider this fact, much less do anything about it.

You see, there are things you can do with this subconscious force, and I'm not talking about the same stuff as those scam artists telling people they can "get rich by using the full power of your subconscious mind," or anything like that. Sure, I mean, you'll probably make more money than the people who aren't using their minds to their full potential, but is money seriously all you want?

Using the power of your mind just to make money is like someone with an enormous sum of money in the bank asking themselves if they have enough money for a new tie or a pair of shoes. Your mind is capable of so much more.

Your subconscious mind contains every single sense impression that you've ever experienced in your entire life. Everything that anyone has ever said to you or done to you; everything you've seen online or read in a book; everything you've ever touched or felt or heard - it's all there, stored away in your subconscious, constantly being processed and turned over and influencing your conscious mind when you make decisions and make things happen in the external world.

That's why it's so important to guard your mind - be the bouncer of your own mind - and to be extremely conscious about what you let into your consciousness. Turn off the trash TV and pick up the best book you can find. Eliminate the toxic energy vampires from your life. Embrace positivity, and reject negativity.

Your brain is always paying attention.

You know how you sometimes get the best ideas coming to you when you're doing something else, like taking a walk, working out at the gym, or even doing the dishes?

Your subconscious mind is always working, processing, connecting, and creating. It's always working with the inputs you provide it, and producing a result in the external world.

So what kinds of results do you want to create in the external world?

Don't just use the enormous power of your subconscious mind to get more "stuff." Use it to create art. Use it to spread goodness and love and more Life. I mean, that's just what I would do. Yes, it's important to have money and to provide for the people closest to you, but cash doesn't have enough "calories" in it to really sustain your spirit.

When you think about it, everything you see in the "external" world (that is, experienced through the medium of your own mind) began as a thought. Inventions, space stations, music, monuments, cathedrals - they all began as a thought within someone's mind, someone who then made that thought real in the external world.

Your brain is fundamentally the same as theirs. They have a human brain, and so do you. There's nothing in the world that didn't exist first as a thought and great achievements are the results of people consciously utilizing this enormous power that is available to all of us.

#2: The Perfection Within Us is Seeking Expression

In one of my favorite books of all time, Cosmos, by Carl Sagan, he explains that every single element that makes up the human body originated in a distant star that exploded, had its elements spread out across the universe, and gradually coalesced to become...us.

We are starstuff, he used to say, and what that means is that human consciousness is actually the entire universe becoming conscious and experiencing itself. I literally still remember where I was when I first read that. I remember how it stopped me cold; it made me feel something I had never felt before, but yet somehow remembered.

Conversely, when we die, the elements that made up us dissolve back into creation and return to the universe of endless time.

You are a part of that - you are intimately connected to everything that ever was and that ever will be - and "you" are forever moving into and out of form. So is everything - and everyone - else.

For many people, that realization is a paradigm shift. It's a massive jolt to their consciousness, and a total repudiation of the idea that we exist for ourselves, and that our well-being isn't also intimately tied up with the well-being of every single person with whom we share the planet; the universe!

I call that a helpful belief, an empowering belief. See, I ruthlessly curate my reality so that I only believe ideas that serve me and my conscious evolution. I don't believe in separation, I don't believe in enemies, and I don't believe in selfishness.

I believe in the Ultimate Perfection of the Universe, and I hold onto the confident expectation and trust that in the end, everything's going to be fine. And that, if everything is not yet fine, then it's not yet the end. I stole that from Oscar Wilde, but hey, we're both stardust, right? Right. Moving on...

Let's bring this back to your life. If the world is getting better all the time, and there's lots of evidence for this claim here, here, and here, then it's up to us to keep up the momentum. To be part of the solution, and to band together for the greater good of us all.

I choose to believe that the history of the universe is a constant, unrelenting move toward perfection and peace, and I believe that it's up to all of us to make that happen, to move that process along. This perfection is part of the basic fabric and structure of existence itself, and it's our job to make it real in the here and now.

No single person can do it alone - indeed, there are no extra people on the entire planet. All of us possess infinite value as humans because we are literally irreplaceable, and the problems of the world are simply too great to abdicate our personal and collective responsibility toward solving them.

Some of us have larger or smaller parts to play, but it is essential that we play these parts well. Hold this image of perfection and progress in your mind at all times, and make your life a constant movement toward it. Because as Bob Proctor says:

#3: Make the Unconscious Conscious

We've covered the awesome power of your subconscious mind already, but it bears repeating. And we're also going to add some new information here.

One of the most important things to realize is that you have direct, conscious control over what gets fed to your subconscious mind.

What happens down there is a mystery (it's literally subconscious), but you can decide to embrace positivity instead of tolerating negativity; you can decide to listen to an enlightening podcast instead of gossiping about your stupid co-workers; you can decide to pick up a great book and engage with the ideas of the greatest, most brilliant people who have ever lived.

These are choices you can make, and what goes into your subconscious is far too important to leave up to chance.

Remember: You control the inputs. You don't have complete control (no one does), but again, you "have to" ruthlessly curate your own reality and cut out everything that doesn't serve your highest purpose as a fully enlivened human being.

Remember: Your brain is always paying attention. Your subconscious remembers everything, including all those times you let yourself down or gave less than your total effort.

Being able to trust yourself is so insanely valuable, and I can't possibly overstate the importance of never lying to yourself, and never letting yourself down. You have real - though limited - control over what enters your subconscious mind, and optimizing your inputs is literally a matter of life and death.

READ 3 MORE KEY IDEAS HERE

Action Steps:

So you've finished reading. What do you do now?

Reading for pleasure is great, and I wholeheartedly support it. However, I am intensely practical when I'm reading for a particular purpose. I want a result. I want to take what I've learned and apply it to my one and only life to make it better!

Because that's really what the Great Books all say. They all say: "You must change your life!" So here, below, are some suggestions for how you can apply the wisdom found in this breakdown to improve your actual life.

Please commit to taking massive action on this immediately! Acting on what you've learned here today will also help you solidify it in your long-term memory. So there's a double benefit! Let's begin...

#1: Make a Firm Decision

Everything starts with a firm decision. You may have heard this before, but the Latin root of the word, "decide," is decidere, which means literally to cut off, as in cut off any other possibility except this one. To burn the boats, so to speak, and to go all in.

We tend to resist change from the outside, but when we've decided to change, and we enlist the help of others for extreme accountability for our decision, then big things start to happen.

#2: Practice Creative Visualization

This is the most "out-there" thing I'll ever ask you to do, but I do believe it plays a part in bringing about lasting change in our lives.

We need to see the desired change, in clear, bright, vivid detail, and we need to enlist all our senses in order to constantly bring it to the top of our minds.

An important step here is to write out your vision in words and keep it in front of you literally all day long. Some people also print out photos of the kind of life they want to live, and although I don't do that personally, it doesn't strike me as a bad idea either.

#3: Act Like the Person You're Becoming

Our actions tell us who we are. Remember, your brain is always paying attention to what you're doing, and if you perform the actions and the habits of the person you want to become, then eventually, you become that person.

You become what you think about most of the time - what you hold constantly in awareness - and what we all need to do is gather evidence that we are the kind of person we want to become.

We remind ourselves over and over and over again through our words and actions until it's just overwhelmingly true that this is who we are. We act our way into a new mode of being.

SEE THE REST OF THE ACTION STEPS HERE

"The path to success is to take massive, determined action."

-Tony Robbins

About the Author:

Bob Proctor was a Canadian self-help author and lecturer. He was best known for his New York Times best-selling book You Were Born Rich (1984) and being a contributor to the film The Secret (2006). Proctor's teachings maintained the idea that a positive self-image is critical for obtaining success.

Reading classic books by people like Earl Nightingale, Wallace D. Wattles, and Napoleon Hill inspired him to help others lead lives of prosperity and fullness, and he went on to found the Proctor Gallagher Institute in order to further that mission.

Additional Resources:

Proctor-Gallagher-Institute.com | Main Website

Paradigm Shift: An In-Depth Explanation | YouTube

Tips and Tools from Bob Proctor | Free Resources

This Book on Amazon:

Change Your Paradigm, Change Your Life, by Bob Proctor

If You Liked This Book:

You Were Born Rich, by Bob Proctor

Million Dollar Habits, by Brian Tracy

Super Consciousness, by Colin Wilson

Be Your Future Self Now, by Dr. Benjamin Hardy

Personal Development for Smart People, by Steve Pavlina

Mindset, by Carol S. Dweck

The Strangest Secret, by Earl Nightingale

The Science of Getting Rich, by Wallace D. Wattles

Psycho-Cybernetics, by Maxwell Maltz

As a Man Thinketh, by James Allen

Ok, that’s it for now!

Again, the rest of the above breakdown is absolutely free, and you can find it right here.

What you see in this email is less than half of what you get at the Stairway to Wisdom. I left out the Book Notes, Questions to Stimulate Your Thinking, several of the Key Ideas, etc. There’s lots more for you to read if you enjoyed what you read in this email!

You can also apply to work with me directly on this page right here.

I hope you enjoyed this edition of The Reading Life, and enjoy the rest of your week!

All the best,

Matt Karamazov

P.S. Whenever you're ready, here are three more ways I can help you apply the wisdom found in the greatest books ever written to your life:

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