Theory of Reality exposes Positive Thinking and The Secret as a pack of lies.

Theory of Reality

The world is not the way we want it to be, nor even the way it should be..... it simply is - the way it is.

Be very sceptical of Spiritual & "meta-physical" technologies

The lies of Positive Thinking, The Secret and What the Bleep - The Success Gurus unmasked

If you've ever read any of the following: Vincent Peale, Think and Grow Rich, The Secret (Either the Book or the DVD), The Science of Getting rich, The Monk who Sold his Ferrari, John Kehoe's Mind Power, you've come to the right place.

You've been overdue for a purging of these harmful teachings.

As you may know I am not a big fan of the “self improvement” genre in general, simply because there is so much crap out there by people, who’s only success is their seminars and their books, with nothing else to back it – yet they want to tell YOU how to be successful in life or business.

Start by opening each of the following hyperlinks, and get ready for some serious myth busting:

• Positive thinking affects reality, as explained in The secret and What the bleep is bullshit
• Eckhart Tolle (Power of Now) is a Charlatan
• Tony Robbins is nothing more than a good start for beginners.

Dealing with Reality is good for you and is the only path to success; evading it leads to ruin

Reluctance to fully embrace reality is the ultimate tool for self deception, delusion, ineffective action, and generally, a fast way to just becoming a sucker in someone else's game plan.

There is only one objective reality - the real world - the bricks and mortar, people and animals that you see around you. The spiritual dimension is beyond your direct sphere of influence, and if you are religious, consider living by the muslim saying "Pray, but tie your camel".

You cannot generally have your cake and eat it too; Choices need to made; Priorities chosen; Limited resources (such as time and money) allocated to the highest potential causes. Sometimes you need to give up some things to get other things that you desire more.

There is no free lunch. Basic economics can be delayed but not thwarted indefinitely. To receive value (money, appreciation or anything worth having) you need to create and deliver value. Value for value, nothing for nothing. Expect nothing from no-one, and don't let others guilt trip you into giving away your hard earned resources in return for nothing. The same begger on the same street corner everyday, with a fully functional body, does not deserve your charity.

This world can be harsh, and people can be unbearably untrustworthy, unreliable and plain crooked. This creates a terrible temptation to invent "make believe truths" that allow us to tell ourselves that everything is ok, even when its not. This causes us to delay taking critical actions that we need to take right now.

Embracing reality means taking sufficient steps to try to protect your own interests, to not put too much trust in unknown strangers, and not to have unrealistically high demands of others. It means accepting the fact that others will make mistakes and let you down. It also means to accept the fact that there are both decent and nasty people out there, and not to take things too personally.

The sharp hard edge of reality, also means that we live both in a world of cause-and-effect (where your actions matter), and in a world where there are external factors beyond your control. The principle is that over time, the right decisions backed up with the right actions, should in general prevail over any circumstances... evening out either good or bad lack, depending on the quality of your past actions and decisions.

The more you are in touch with reality, reading situations for what they really are, the sooner you can take corrective actions, and the more effective your choice of actions will be.

The goal in life is not to be either positive or negative to the exclusion of either; but rather to be appropriate to the situation, to be balanced, and to deal with a reality that includes both positive and negative facts.

Bad positivism: Ignore the negative facts that you need to deal with in your life and focus only on the positives.
vs
Good positivism: A solution orientated mindset - look for solutions to problems, focus on actions that you can take in response to negative facts or situations. Be actively on the lookout for real opportunities so that you will notice them. Realistically assess what is and what isn't under your control.

Bad negativism: The world is going down the tubes, we are all going to die, so why bother? I am useless so why attempt anything?
vs
Good negativism: What can go wrong? Where's the catch? What should I look out for? What can I do about it?

Here is a very good article, called 12 tough-love truths, that encapsulate the best self help (congruent with these principles) that I've seen in a while.

Winning Through Intimidation

I have to give credit to Robert Ringer, who with his 1970's book Winning through intimidation, put me on the winning path. Despite the aggresive sounding title, the book is actually more about how not to become intimidated yourself.

His original formulation of the Theory of Reality was:

Theory of Sustenance of a Positive Attitude Through the Assumption of a Negative Result

a.   Prepare yourself for long-term success by being prepared for short-term failure

b.   A person shouldn’t enter a sales situation feeling he can’t make the sale, but he should realistically assume that he won’t make the sale. If you’re prepared, then you’re able to feel confident that you are capable of making the sale if it is possible to be made. Hope for the best, but realistically assume the worst.

c.   No matter how well prepared you are, only a small percentage of deals actually close, because there are an endless number of factors beyond your control.

d.   Each negative result is an educational experience from which you can extract lessons learned, and then forget about the negative result.

Theory of Relevance

a.   The most important factor to consider is whether something is relevant to what you’re trying to accomplish. Work only on things that are relevant.

b.   For example, the builder’s cost is irrelevant to a buyer. All the buyer cares about is cash flow. Also, whether or not a person is “honest” is irrelevant. What matters is what he puts down in writing.

14. Makeable Deal Theory a. It’s more efficient to work hard on finding a few makeable deals, rather than working hard on an endless number of unmakeable deals and clinging to the faint hope that you’ll somehow close one. People have a masochistic tendency to work on “pie-in-the-sky” deals that have little possibility of closing.

Three Type Theory

There are only three types of people in the business world:

i.   Type 1: Lets you know that he’s out to get all of your chips. Then he tries to do just that.

ii.   Type 2: Assures you that he’s not interested in getting your chips. Then he tries to grab all of your chips anyway.

iii.   Type 3: Assures you that he’s not interested in getting your chips, and honestly means it. However, in the end, he tries to grab all of your chips anyway.

Theory of Intimidation

a. The problems most people have in reaching their objectives revolve around the fact that they constantly allow themselves to be intimidated.

b. The results a person obtains are inversely proportional to the degree to which he is intimidated.

Thirty Year Theory

a. You are going to die. Therefore, you should go after all you can get, as quickly as you can get it, because the reality is that your time is limited.

Ice Ball Theory

a. In 50 billion years, the sun will burn out and the Earth will be a frozen ice ball. Nothing you do now could possibly matter then. So don’t take yourself too seriously. Life is a game, and play to win. There’s no reason to be afraid to be aggressive or take chances. The reality is that there’s no way you’re going to get out of this thing alive, so why play conservatively.

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